


Take Me to Neverland

by just_Shuu



Category: NCT (2018), NCT (Band), NCT Dream Ensemble - Fandom
Genre: Aggressive Lee Taeyong, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Anxiety, Blackmail, Bullying, Childhood Trauma, Dubious Consent, Homophobia, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung-centric, M/M, Manipulation, Minor Injuries, Popular Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Smart Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, The fic that makes you angry LMAO, Underage Prostitution, Violence, please read the tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:22:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 54,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24060526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_Shuu/pseuds/just_Shuu
Summary: Doyoung is a social outcast.But he's fine. He can survive his last year of high school without overdosing on coffee and the occasional blood loss from slitting his arms too many times.What he won't survive is Taeyong's constant reminder that his twisted attraction to seemingly perfect Jung Jaehyun only proves that he is, in fact, not fine.Or; genius and anthropophobic Kim Doyoung  accidentally sleeps with his school's Principal who just so happens to be Jaehyun's father, effectively causing a domino effect of pain and suffering that will eventually fuck them all.
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Nakamoto Yuta, Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong, Kim Jungwoo/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 381
Kudos: 596





	1. Beware, beware, be skeptical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. The author does not condone and promote themes such as underage prostitution, rape, bullying, manipulation, etc. but are merely using them to test the limits of their creativity and delusion. If you are not comfortable, then EXIT that tab immediately😂
> 
> Warning: Irregular Updates
> 
> For inquiries: (LMAO it's like I'm running a business)  
> [ curious cat ](https://curiouscat.qa/headlesshyuck)  
> [ twitter ](https://twitter.com/headlesshyuck?s=09)

“What’s your dream?”

The question leaves Doyoung unguarded.

He blinks like a lost child abandoned by his parents in a big city alone to teach him independence at a young age. To be fair, the comparison wasn’t that far off, considering that it actually happened in his earlier years.

For a child, it probably wasn’t normal. He overheard their neighbours once saying he was unfortunate to be born in a family that wasn’t making enough to feed four mouths. He considered himself lucky if he even had a single meal in a day.

So when Doyoung’s mother accidentally let go of his hand the first time she took him out of the house to _play hide and seek,_ he had no reason to blame her.

For them, this, among other things, was _normal_.

He made it back home safe, grinning from ear to ear with the pride of finding his own way back while calling out _eomma I found you!_ as soon as he saw her in the kitchen.

He should’ve known back then, when he saw the look on his mother’s face and how she looked at him, that home was _never_ the safest place. His punishment involved a series of things. In the end, he just dismissed it as being unfortunate for three weeks.

“Doyoung?” the same voice halts his trip back to memory-lane.

“A dream... _s-seonsaengnim_?” He curses his stutter in his mind riddled with countless thoughts. He then looks at the man before him.

In appearance, Yang- _seonsaengnim_ wasn’t intimidating. You could ask a kid on the street what they thought of the man and they wouldn’t describe him as a scary man who their parents warned not to accept candy from. He wasn’t nice enough to give free candy to toddlers either. Rather, he falls somewhere in between.

And Doyoung kind of likes that about him. He didn’t want pity nor indifference.

The man looks at him as he flicks through countless pages, the written words and numbers blurring more and more. “You have the highest grades in your year, no absences, no demerits...” He stops scanning the uninteresting papers to look at the individual standing before him “...some might even say you’re the perfect model student.”

Doyoung licks his dry lips from where he stands. His hands which he placed behind his back seemed not familiar with the concept of immobility, interlocked fingers rubbing at each other as each second passes.

He resists the urge to bolt out of the room right then and there.

“Kid, let me tell you something,” Yang- _seonsaengnim_ says as he puts down the stack of papers on his desk. Doyoung tries to hide the fact that he wanted to make himself even smaller the moment his teacher places a hand on his shoulder. “Even the delinquents and problem children in this school know exactly what to do with their future. You could say they lost all hope. They either choose a career path to ensure at least their survival, or they don’t choose anything at all.”

Doyoung glances at the hand on his shoulder.

“It’s not the students with below average grades that take a longer time to decide what to do in their lives. Rather, its students like you. Do you know why?”

Doyoung resists the urge to answer _‘because I’m indecisive and every parents’ wet dream therefore there are greater consequences’_ just to spite him. Instead, he shakes his head.

“It’s because they want to remain at the top of the hierarchy,” Yang- _seonsaengnim_ answers. “The predators don’t go after the prey, they go after the other predators. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. As you are now, you are way above the food chain. In their eyes, you are a predator. Who will you go after Doyoung?”

The hand placed on his shoulder was finally retracted. When Yang- _seonsaengnim_ receives no answer, he asks again. “What’s your dream Doyoung?”

Those words again. Those words haunt him.

Finally, he speaks. “I w-want to graduate.”

The silence almost swallowed the room if not for the ticking of the clock. Yang- _seonsaengnim_ laughter then surrounds the room. “Well, that’s a given. I meant what you want to do after you graduate.”

“I want...to g-get a job.”

The man sighs, eyes narrowing even further. “It’s your type that I don’t like the most.”

Doyoung blinks at that.

A knock resounds on the door, signalling them that time is up.

“If there are any problems at home, feel free to tell me. After all, you of all people have the freedom to go anywhere. I imagine your parents are very proud of you.”

He leaves the room with a sigh of his own and then thinks back to the last words Yang- _seonsaengnim_ told him.

It’s funny, because even when he hears those words from the only person who talks to him on a daily basis, Doyoung still doesn’t find the courage to believe in them.

. . .

"Hey Doyoung, do my homework for me."

A black notebook is slammed in front of Doyoung, overlapping the open pages of the hard-bound book he placed on the table to casually read. It just so happens that the title seemed too fitting in the situation he found himself in, he barely manages to hide a snicker at his own misery.

_**Save Me.** _

It was almost like a cry for help. Yet every time he opens the book, no one glanced in his direction, or even question what he does in his spare time. Doyoung couldn't imagine the people in the library to be interested in a compilation of the most gruesome murders that occured in Seoul but he wouldn't have talked about his interests in blood and gore to strangers in the first place.

Being labelled as some sort of crossover between a genius and a weirdo was enough for his reputation. He didn't need "psychopath" on the long list these sycophants and hypocrites came to make up behind his back.

He brings his attention to the black notebook in front of him. He opens it only to find the pages completely blank with no creases, as if it was newly bought. "Where's the homework, Jinyoung?" he asks.

Jinyoung laughs.

In the _library_.

Doyoung felt the other students who seeked peace and quiet in such setting glare daggers at him. He whimpers softly. Oh if looks good kill Doyoung could already be buried alive, the words _"Died because of failure to comply in library rules"_ he imagines to be carved on his grave is enough to haunt him.

"Oh the notebook is simply a gift." Jinyoung pulls a chair from beside Doyoung, the legs scraping on the floor and making an unpleasant sound as it was dragged.

Doyoung felt the stares once again and a series of shushing noises.

Jinyoung lays his whole arm on Doyoung shoulders.

"A...a g-gift?" 

"My my Doyoung. You of all people should know that the school code-" Jinyoung pauses to take out his phone. He squints his eyes to the blue light as he opens a file and reads what is written. "...doesn't allow business transactions in order to gain financial stability or aid to any student." 

Doyoung doesn't tell him he has had the whole 15 pages of the school code memorized the moment he entered the school but he was somehow proud of Jinyoung for at least learning how to read.

He also knows deep down this wouldn't end well for him.

"I know you're a commoner with a dead mother and all, but according to the school code, even if I pity you I can't possibly just give you money for making my second semester's thesis." Jinyoung grins at him. 

"Your w-what?"

"Accept this notebook instead as a token of my gratitude. You like writing essays so much I figured I could give you a high-quality canvas so you don't have to worry about saving the trees and making your handwriting small to save space on each page."

Doyoung was scandalized.

Not only was Jinyoung being unreasonable, but he also insulted Doyoung's naturally small handwriting. He liked to keep things clean and in order, and he does appreciate trees by saving space on his notebooks. 

Money doesn't fall from the sky yet it probably rained gold when Jinyoung was born. He felt like he was being offered some sort of freebie like a beggar. Like he desperately asked for something cheap to the point he considers it as more.

To the people watching the scene, it looked ordinary. As if he was doing Jinyoung a favor.

And that's exactly what Jinyoung wants to make it seem to be.

"Will you do it, little bunny?"

The nickname makes him sick.

"How m-much time do I have?"

Jinyoung smiles at him, knowing he succeeded. "One week," he answers.

"One week?!"

"Why? You can't do it?" Jinyoung stands up from his chair, ready to walk away. "I guess I'll have to give Mark a little surprise visit then."

Doyoung grabs Jinyoung by the arm, the mere mention of his little brother's name allowing him to react so quickly.

The thought of Mark ending up the same as him, the light in his eyes growing dim and losing that childlike laughter. 

The thought of Mark crying for his name if he doesn't manage to make it in time to save him.

No. Not Mark. He's the only one Doyoung has left. He can't lose Mark.

Not him.

"No...I'll do it," Doyoung says too quietly that he finds it hard to believe anyone heard it.

Though, from the smirk on Jinyoung's face as soon as he said it, Doyoung knew he heard it loud and clear.

He once again signed his own death willingly.

Jinyoung leans forward and grabs him by the neck, whispering poison in his ear.

"Good boy."

In his mind, he has already unconsciously pushed the rest of his plans to sleep as the least priority.

Jinyoung leaves the library and the other students finally stop staring at him like he was an art exhibition or the antique display on a museum for free viewing.

He finds his existence quiet cheap these days.

In truth, Jinyoung exiting the room left Doyoung to be the most relieved. He picks up the open book on his desk and decides to continue reading where he left off.

Half an hour passes and he begins to be absorbed in his own little world once again. The myriad of morphemes and anecdotes swimming in his curious mind to interpret left him distracted enough. 

It was an escape.

A scraping sound startles him and Doyoung jumps lightly from his seat.

He could feel his ears turning red for reacting so much. He curses himself for being so paranoid.

He notices a student a couple of desks away from his own. Apparently the sound that almost gave Doyoung a heart attack was from when he pulled his own chair to stand up.

Why are the chairs in the library so noisy when dragged on the floor?

Doyoung notes in his mind to tell Mrs. Lee the librarian to consider putting rubber on the chair legs to minimize the noise.

In his mini scramble to compose himself, he looks at the student once again who was now making his way to check out the book he was reading. It was Jung Jaehyun.

When Yang- _seonsaengnim_ told Doyoung he was at the top of the food chain, he was actually wrong. 

Doyoung was only the brain. 

Jung Jaehyun? He's the brain and many other things.

Everyone knows Jung Jaehyun, not because he was the principal's son. No. That detail came in a little later. Everyone knows Jung Jaehyun because he's the very center of the social circle. 

He was immediately associated the nickname " _nation's first love_ " as soon as his modelling career rose at its peak. Doyoung couldn't oppose to that.

There was once a rumor going around that Jung Jaehyun has slept with every female student in their highly conservative high school, in contrast to his reputation of avoiding relationships. 

Some were quite outrageous and almost seemed overexagerrated. Like Jung Jaehyun buying an orphanage to support the children on the streets, as well as preventing a fellow classmate from being expelled because that student broke a dancer's leg a day before the competition.

But who is Doyoung to believe in rumours? Hell, there was that one rumor that Doyoung was using Lee Taeyong for popularity in exchange of letting him cheat during the final exams.

Perhaps they didn't believe Lee Taeyong had it in him to ace the Physics test on his own, or they thought Doyoung had atoms in his body to handle talking to humans without stuttering even once.

It seemed that only the bad rumors applied to Doyoung. It wasn't lady luck on his side, but pain and misfortune.

Overall, Jung Jaehyun was the embodiment of perfection - humble, ethereal and almost unreal.

However, rather than focusing on Jung Jaehyun's face that his fellow students claimed and insisted to have been sculpted by the gods, Doyoung finds his eyes drawn to the book he gave back to Mrs. Lee the librarian instead.

The cover was too familiar.

The title written in black contrasting the white background. _**Save Me**_.

It was the very same book he was reading.

Doyoung stares at Jung Jaehyun's back until he was left staring at the door of the library, slight noise the wood made as it slammed close bringing him back to reality.

There was no doubt he saw and heard the scene Doyoung was a part of earlier. A student passing on his school work to Doyoung by disguising it as a little favor from a friend. 

Every single student in the room saw it happen and no one was dumb enough to believe it didn't fall into the category of some form of bullying.

Although Doyoung detests any form of sympathy, he knows one thing.

Jung Jaehyun didn't spare him a single glance.

. . .

Doyoung can count the number of people who had been honest to him his whole life on one hand. 

Whether that means he's pitiful or perceptive, it wouldn't matter because he tells enough lies on his own. One in particular, is a daily requirement that serves as a reminder.

He almost believes them the moment the two words leave his lips.

"I'm fine." 

"What are you talking about? You're obviously the opposite of fine." Taeil says as he asseses his...he doesn't even know what Doyoung is to him. The younger has long since established distance from him, dismissing their relationship as strangers that just happened to be doing the same job.

Yet each time he sees Doyoung come in that same door every Friday night, he just looks more and more dead. Taeil was pretty sure Doyoung was at least 180 centimeters tall. A kid that tall shouldn't look like he's about to be blown away by a gentle breeze. With a job like this, Taeil thinks Doyoung must have more than enough to feed himself.

With a lithe figure, a pale face and sunken eyes due to the prominent dark circles underneath them, Taeil was convinced Doyoung is severely underweight. Was it his fast metabolism? Genetics?

"You're like the zombie in that one movie I watched."

"Thanks for the compliment," Doyoung grumbles as he takes off his jacket, revealing a very familiar school uniform.

Taeil narrows his eyes. 

"You look like you haven't had a wink of sleep."

"You're actually right for once hyung."

Taeil resists the urge to smack Doyoung in the head, knowing he wouldn't be of help to someone whose burdens seem to be greater than that of the rest of the world's.

He was introduced to Doyoung a year ago. In this line of work, Taeil wondered why a person like Doyoung ended up in this hellhole. He seemed like a confident kid who had already established his morals from a very young age, suspiciously so. Especially as someone who looked so young. Almost as if he's been doing this his whole life. 

Taeil knew for a fact that Doyoung was a minor.

But they all have their own secrets behind closed doors. It was his own life on the line.

It's an unspoken rule between them all.

They're already outcasts of society. Might as well make their own standards to remain sane.

Doyoung never questioned him why he was here, so why should he ask the kid how fucked up his life is?

But Taeil has always been that person who's always too concerned for others. A nagging voice always echoed in his head. That's why he's here in the first place. 

Deep within, they both probably already knew the answer. Yet, he still offers Doyoung one last escape.

"Do you...want to run away?" Taeil asks.

To his surprise, Doyoung does something for the first time ever since they met on that day he sealed his fate. 

He smiles. 

Not because he was happy. But as if he was in so much pain he had to do so only to remain humane.

"You don't think I've ever tried?" 

Taeil averts his eyes. Afraid that he'll know too much.

Today, Doyoung convinces himself again that he's fine as he enters the designated room Taeil told him his client was waiting.

A man gestures for him to enter, eyes scanning his form up and down. The wrinkles in his eyes scrunch up as if to say he wasn't satisfied. He was dressed in a suit, clearly to show him the difference between him and a commoner.

Doyoung knows everything this man does is only for show. To establish dominance.

No one would have come here if he wasn't a scum of the earth, after all.

"Don't be shy, little bunny," a gruelling voice escapes the man's mouth. The kind of sound one makes not because of age, but because he probably consumed too much nicotine.

Doyoung was way too familiar.

A year ago, when he first entered this very same room, he prayed to god for salvation. Doyoung was convinced that he's been abandoned.

But now he's certain after he was dogged by misfortune after misfortune in his 18 years of existence.

There was no god to save him in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *eomma - mom/mother  
> *seonsaengnim - teacher/sir/mister/miss


	2. I'd give you my lungs so you could breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is because of my best friend who discovered I was writing disturbing fanfictions, and therefore had forced me to update🤣
> 
> I didn't expect my work to gain this much attention, but I'm glad most of us are enjoying it anyway. I hope you have fun reading this chapter too (ﾉﾟ▽ﾟ)ﾉ
> 
> I also suggest to read the notes at the end~

For as long as he could remember, Doyoung had always been the strong one.

And for that, he hated his little brother. Because Mark was weak.

At the tender age of 12 his father demanded him to make a decision.

"It's either you or your brother."

Mark looked at him like a deer caught in headlights. It wasn't the first time Doyoung saw his little brother paralyzed, gravity the only thing keeping him up on the tiny balls of his feet.

He would see those same eyes looking up at him whenever Mark called out his name and asked him things he was curious about.

He would ruffle Mark's unkempt hair, his hand disappearing into the ocean of thick, dark strands they had long forgotten to cut with the knife their now dead mother once used in the kitchen. Scissors were a luxury and inefficient.

"Hyung, did we do something wrong?"

Doyoung would tell him the same thing over and over again. 

"No, Mark. You did nothing wrong."

 _'Only I did,'_ were the words he left unspoken.

It was in these moments that Doyoung realizes he couldn't afford to be a child anymore, for the sake of them both. 

Between him and Mark, there's no doubt he's the smarter one.

Doyoung was proud of that fact not because he could taunt his little brother with sly remarks of him being clearly having more braincells than their whole family combined, but because it meant to him that he could be an older brother Mark could depend on.

He'd teach Mark to find the way home whenever he's lost, how to tie his shoelaces so that he wouldn't trip on his own feet, how to cry just right whenever Doyoung faked getting hit by cars just to get compensation, how to play innocent whenever the police questions them why they stole the old lady's wallet-

He could teach him so many things and Mark would look at him with the same admiring eyes, always holding his hand.

But not anymore.

Because Doyoung's the strong one.

"Who will it be?" his father asked.

Doyoung, despite his young age, knew what it meant. He might as well have been told they needed less mouths to feed.

He feels Mark's grip on his hand tightening further, a silent plea telling him to never let go of his smaller one. As if he sensed that something was truly wrong this time and he wouldn't believe Doyoung's petty lies anymore. 

"Hyung?" Mark utters in a soft voice, looking up at him, his eyes glossy. Still remaining traces of innocence.

Deep down, maybe he was proud of his little brother for even holding out this long.

But Doyoung had no room to hesitate. Every fiber in his body knew fully well what this single decision entailed.

His life depended on the choice he was about to make. Mark wouldn't survive in this cruel world of adulthood. He wasn't strong enough.

Doyoung smiled as he let go of his little brother's hand, facing the demon masquerading as his father.

"Mark," he answers.

The last thing he heard is 10-year-old Mark's broken cry, screaming for his name as he was dragged out the door of what they never called home.

  
. . .

  
"I hate you so much Kim Doyoung."

Doyoung blinks from his seat, pausing to look up from the textbook he was reading about animal anatomy as soon as he heard the door to the waiting room slam open. He registers Lee Taeyong's familiar voice cursing his name.

It was a normal occurence that less men seeked out their illegal form of entertainment on Sunday evenings. If you're in this place for too long you'll even consider it a routine.

Still, Doyoung was torn between two emotions. To be relieved that he didn't have to sit in his classes as he tries to hide whatever result his actions the night before caused, or to be fucking terrified because he wouldn't have the money to eat at least two meals a day for the whole week.

He decides to set aside his problems, along with the unpaid electricity bill hidden in the crevices of his backpack and the unbought overly expensive journals they were required for this semester.

Instead, he brings his attention back to his co-worker, noticing that Taeyong didn't even bother to put a shirt on, collarbones exposed and littered with marks, his hair sticking out in all places.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Doyoung answers tonelessly, focusing instead on his assigned school work to memorize random amphibians' skeletal systems.

His indifference seemed to irk Taeyong even more as he snatches the book from Doyoung's hands, holding it above his head.

"Wha-"

Taeyong looks at him coldly, eyes filled with annoyance. "The self-entitled prick fucking moaned _your_ name when he came inside me."

An obnoxious laughter resounded from the door and Doyoung sees Taeil walking towards them. 

He snatches Doyoung's textbook back from Taeyong's clutches and gives it back to him. He nods and softly whispers a small thank you.

"That just means you have to up your game then, Taeyongie," Taeil says with a mocking grin. 

Taeyong gasped almost too dramatically, eyes blown wide, chest heaving up and down as he breathes unevenly. 

"Fuck you Taeil. My game is all the way up there. Doyoung just knows how to fake his moans better than me because he's probably part of the church choir or something-"

"Hey you know what they say. If you can't keep 'em, that just means they never belonged to you to begin with."

"I would very much like to be excluded from this conversation," Doyoung adds.

Taeyong seethes, walking to ground himself on the seat opposite of Doyoung's and points at his direction. "Why are they so obsessed with you?"

Doyoung merely shrugs.

"Look at him Taeil! He's reading how to properly dissect a frog!"

Taeil glances at the illustrated pictures in Doyoung's textbook, noticing the words that were too small, the ink faded. He wondered how Doyoung managed to even read it. 

"You know, that's actually funny because even though the two of you attend the same school, you're not studying as much as him."

...And there's the elephant in the room.

Doyoung pauses in reading a certain page he was fixated on to stare blankly at Taeil, then at Taeyong.

The shift of attention made Taeyong rise on the balls of his feet. "We don't talk about that," he tells Taeil after a lifetime of awkward silence.

"Oh." Taeil felt like he overstepped a quite a risky boundary. Or as if he was placed in a land mine. It's one or the other. "Forget I asked then. I just thought you two would help each other out...or something."

Taeyong clears his throat, at least to ease the growing tension in the room. He eyes Doyoung, checking for his reaction only to find him reading once again.

"The law isn't that kind," Doyoung speaks for them all, flipping a page to surprisingly see two graphic images next to each other. One was the body of a bird, and the other was it's wings detached from it.

_A wingless bird._

If they were to get caught in this foolish act of sinful carnage, Doyoung wouldn't even bother saying goodbye because it's already guaranteed they'll all meet in hell anyway.

The growing list of the consequences only continued to pile in his head, a drumming ache that always reminded him to be afraid of the world they abide by. He knows fully well what society is capable of.

"So your best plan was to pretend to be strangers?" 

Doyoung and Taeyong looked at each other.

"Not exactly," the two answer in unison.

. . .

The first time Lee Taeyong spoke to Doyoung, they both knew it was an act out of obligation.

"Kim Doyoung-ssi?" An inquiring voice stopped him on his tracks. Even with his head down, someone stood before him and Doyoung found his eyes fixated on the person's polished shoes glinting in the light. 

Doyoung dares himself to look up and finds himself face to face with Lee Taeyong.

He felt air escape his lungs as his breathing races with time. 

If Doyoung found this student's shoes pretty, it was nothing close compared to the face of who they belonged to.

Doyoung heard occasional talk about Lee Taeyong. They called him Jung Jaehyun's right hand man. With a face so unreal you wouldn't believe he was human, no one would be able to look away.

_Was it charisma? Or the natural ability to charm anyone he meets?_

They said Lee Taeyong dances as if he was born to do so. He proved himself worthy by winning so many competitions, only second best to Jung Jaehyun himself. The students have lost count of how many trophies displayed in the Office were his contributions.

Doyoung thought his heart jumped out of his throat right then and there as he tries to compose himself. He resisted the urge to let the panic sink in and curl up into a ball of shame on the floor. 

The other students' whispers lingered to the point that they almost seemed deafening.

"Y-yes?" He managed to let out in a soft voice, as if it would draw less attention to them.

Doyoung glances with shifty eyes as he scans how many people were there looking at a sight they wouldn't get to see everyday. _Student Council Vice President Lee Taeyong_ talking to _Kim Doyoung the Social Outcast._

_Thirteen._

There were currently thirteen people gawking at them and Doyoung was convinced he's done something in his past life to be damned such misfortune.

Doyoung unknowingly crosses his arms against his back, twiddling with the callouses in his fingers. He looked like he was being interrogated again. Also maybe mildly constipated.

Lee Taeyong stared at him as an unknown entity. "I was told by Mom that you're allowed to join us for dinner tonight..."

His heart stopped for a second.

Dinner. _Right_. It was the 15th of May. 

Doyoung cursed himself for even forgetting the date, too occupied in finishing a supposed group project. Today, he ended up doing everything by himself again.

"Actually, are you alright?"

"Y-yes," Doyoung answers, tongue-tied.

"You don't look that well. Are you sure you're fine?"

"...Yes."

Doyoung almost slapped himself. In the length of time a person talks to him, he reprimanded himself for only saying the same word over and over again like a broken answering machine.

But he still gives himself a mental pat on the back for managing to even speak. 

"Mark will be waiting," Lee Taeyong whispered in his ear before passing by to walk in the opposite direction.

Doyoung nodded to himself, trying to contain his eagerness. Expectations have always led him astray. Instead, he spoke a reply too late even when Lee Taeyong was already a significant distance far from him. 

"I'll be there."

That night, he tried to normalize having dinner with the foster family who was able to provide his little brother everything he himself wasn't able to give. 

Despite the awkwardness and Mrs. Lee's clear effort of convincing Mark to speak, Doyoung smiles to himself. From where he sat, Mark was taller now. He looked healthy, dressed in clean clothes. 

But most of all, he looked like he always belonged here.

Taeyong told him that Mark will be waiting. But his little brother looked more like he had already long stopped doing so before Doyoung could even pick himself up from the ground to run towards him.

Mark had raced towards the finish line, not knowing Doyoung was trying so hard to catch up to him.

His admiring eyes were gone, replaced by much colder ones. The pair of dark orbs screamed hatred when they met with his.

Not a single word was exchanged between the two.

Doyoung had a moment of realization, heart aching painfully in his chest.

_He doesn't need me anymore._

Doyoung hid the fact that he didn't stop begging Mrs. Lee on his knees just to be able to see his precious little brother on the 15th of every month. 

He smiles. Accepting the truth that even without the same blood running through their veins, Lee Taeyong was a brother to Lee Mark more than he'll ever be.

The second time Lee Taeyong spoke to Doyoung, it was nothing but a sick, twisted game fate loved to play.

"Please don't jump. They would accuse me that I pushed you off the school rooftop," the words escaped his mouth before he could even think about them.

Lee Taeyong freezed on the spot, one leg dangling on the railing while the other was still on the ground, arms pushing his body towards the edge. He slowly turned his head to look in Doyoung's direction.

Doyoung hoped the staring contest would've lasted for a while. 

But Lee Taeyong's sharp voice cuts through the tense air, successfully breaking the silence. _"What?"_

Doyoung gulped, fidgeting in place. He meets Lee Taeyong's narrowed eyes that was filled with so much fire, yet at the same time held the deepness of the entire ocean.

"T-this is kind of awkward. I'm sorry. But I've been l-listening to you scream out derogatory and explicit terms about Jung Jaehyun for the past 10 minutes and I don't mean to intervene but I was eating lunch and I don't really like loud noises and-"

Doyoung paused to breathe. "I s-saw you trying to jump from this building and I don't recommend it. With a f-fall from this height, I estimate you would only get broken bones. If you're lucky to end up landing on your head first, the chances of dying increases it to 37.5% but at most you w-would get a mild concussion and a broken neck. So what I'm saying is-"

"I can't believe I'm getting lectured about the physics of killing myself before I'm about to die," Lee Taeyong groaned out.

He finally lowered his leg from the railing, bare feet touching the hard concrete as he regains stability. He stared at the student before him, realizing that they both knew each other more than they'd originally assumed.

"Oh. It's you." 

Lee Taeyong looked at Doyoung from the top of his head to the bottom of his worn-out shoes. He didn't know shoes that ugly existed until he saw them in the flesh himself.

They certainly were a part of different worlds.

He only knew Kim Doyoung as his adoptive brother's older brother, having already had dinner with him once. What that makes them both, he doesn't know and care enough to put a label to.

He wasn't interested in peeling off the layers to such an overcomplicated narrative. He heard how all the students talked about him.

Kim Doyoung. A dedicated student who deserved his scholarship, albeit a dead mother. Having mandatory dinners with him once every month didn't change that assumption.

But now, Taeyong was certainly a little intrigued. He spoke before his mind could register his words. "You spent your whole life being the top student in our school but you don't really know anything at all. Tell me. How does it feel to not be born a failure?"

Doyoung looked taken aback at the harsh words that seemed to naturally escape his lips, pouring out all at once. 

It was almost like the Lee Taeyong everyone knew never existed. Right now, he felt like he was looking at a completely different person. "What d-do you mean?"

"You know that bullshit they always told us that hardwork never beats talent? Well fuck me, those people were right all along."

Doyoung didn't find any words to say. 

He watched as Lee Taeyong approached him closely, his index finger with black painted nails so sharp digging at the left side of his chest. 

Doyoung quietly whimpered from the pain as the image of Lee Taeyong taking his heart out raw and leaving him there bleeding to death slowly wormed it's way into his head.

"Just so you know, I wasn't planning to jump anyway. I don't _owe_ you anything," Taeyong told him as he retracted his finger, casting one final glance at him before slamming the rooftop door shut.

The clamorous sound of the door reverberated only to reassure Doyoung that he was finally all alone again.

The gentle breeze carried along his woes as he hums an imperfect tune his mother always sang to him whenever he cried. His unaccompanied voice danced with the air - never once reaching anyone at all.

He still felt the lingering ache of Lee Taeyong's index finger in his chest.

He glanced at the railings of the school rooftop, relieving the traces of the unplanned encounter.

Doyoung smiled as he saw Lee Taeyong's forgotten pair of shoes, glinting once again in the light.

The third time, Lee Taeyong spoke to Doyoung, it wasn't a coincidence. 

"There's a problem."

Doyoung flinched in alarm at the sudden voice, then proceeded to look at Lee Taeyong questioningly. His mouth was stuffed with so much food, his protruding cheeks served as further proof that he was starved most of his life.

He no sooner realized he looked ridiculous in front of his unexpected guest, but he focused more on his accomplishment of not choking to death.

He felt Lee Taeyong's movement of sitting in front of him, legs crossed in comfort as if it was just another ordinary day.

"How can I get rid of Jung Jaehyun?" he asked.

And Doyoung _chokes_.

He heaves and heaves and heaves and Lee Taeyong only stared at him.

Once Doyoung was certain that he didn't die yet from a _fucking tteokbokki_ stuck in his esophagus, he lets out a noise of bewilderment. "What did you just tell me?"

"Tell me how to get rid of Jung Jaehyun."

"Right. Uhm. What?"

"Are you deaf?"

"N-no," Doyoung answers. "Not at all. My hearing is perfectly fine. I'm just...confused why you're asking me how to _dispose_ of our school's Student Council President...I guess."

Taeyong scoffed in his place as he stretched his arms, letting himself fall backwards to lay on the concrete. He stared at the sky that to him always seemed too big and infinite. Most people found it's bluish hue beautiful. The clouds... vagrant, white and puffy as they are - playing and teasing with other clouds and moving freely as if they own freedom itself. 

Not Taeyong. 

He only feared the sky would fall and crush him right then and there one day, his existence never once proving a purpose. He wondered why at times the clouds cry with such fierce and sonorous thunder.

"Why the fuck is he so perfect? It wouldn't kill him to make a _single_ mistake once."

"Who?" Doyoung dared to ask.

"Jaehyun-ah."

Doyoung picks up his chopsticks along with his food, stuffing them in his mouth casually. He chewed slowly this time. Perhaps too slow for Lee Taeyong's liking.

"This is stupid. Why am I here talking to you?" he asked himself as he waited for Doyoung to finish his meal.

"You tell me."

Lee Taeyong sits up to face him with the grace of a feline cat. Doyoung almost wanted to see him do it again.

"He stole the main dance role. Again. I hate him so much."

"And?" Doyoung asked, failing to see the problem.

Lee Taeyong snatched the chopsticks from his hand only to throw them away. The clattering sound they made as they met with the ground fascinated Doyoung. 

"Forget it. I wasn't born with the talent to dance like you were born with the talent to solve trigonometry equations," Lee Taeyong phrased, voice laced with venom. "I worked so fucking hard my whole life. Do you know the feeling of trying so hard to the point of almost giving up? I'm not even tired. That's a fucking understatement of what I had to go through. I'm a dead man walking."

Doyoung stood up, walking towards the wooden utensils that landed a few feet away from them both. He picks them up, along with his backpack and other belongings.

Before he could leave, he told Lee Taeyong one last thing that would entangle their already twisted lives.

_"Why don't you just accidentally break his legs?"_

  
What Taeyong failed to put into account though, was Jung Jaehyun's enormous luck and ability to dodge the leg he _accidentally_ stuck out while practicing a complicated set of intense routines and choreographies. 

Doyoung didn't even know Taeyong had it in him.

That day, they both swore to keep the real reason why Thailand's pride and dancing ace Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul, nicknamed Ten, wasn't one of the students who was able to participate in the national dance competition that school year. 

Jung Jaehyun still danced in the center of their team, assuring everyone that Ten would only stay in the hospital for a month because of a fractured ankle.

The dance team won first place.

In the end, Lee Taeyong still doesn't owe Doyoung anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *tteokbokki - long, white, cylinder-shaped rice cakes  
> *There are two theories why people take their shoes off before committing suicide. One, is that it is a way for a person who is about to kill him/herself to leave a final mark in the world. Another is that it is a way for a person to mentally prepare for death. (Thank you Google🤣)  
> *The word "Lee Taeyong" is so overused in this chapter but I wanted to somehow convey how distant Doyoung is to people 0w0


	3. Let the demon sing me a lullaby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wrote this chapter without thinking so please excuse the grammar mistakes and spelling errors (゜￢゜)
> 
> This chapter was inspired by DoTae fighting again on a couch and Jaehyun being a competitive boxer on crack in Late Night Punch Punch Show XD
> 
> Haechan's Children drop the beat!~

Doyoung thinks violence exists in the basic human mind. 

It's only natural. In a hormone-driven habitat that surpresses the urge of the youth to tear each other apart, violence is home to many who want to let out a tiny scream.

When you're trapped inside the four walls of a private institution that subjugates you to endless demands of academic perseverance, somebody is bound to break. 

There's a saying his school upholds to be true, passed on to each student from the very beginning of time. _"The less you sleep, the higher the probability that you'll succeed."_

Doyoung's is unfazed. His nights have always been sleepless with reoccurring nightmares, swallowing him whole and pulling him further to insanity.

 _Violence_. He's never thought of ever resolving to such demoralizing ways, considering that he's already physically weak in the first place.

Not to mention the fact that he was no stranger to it at such a young age.

Classrooms were once places of fear, but it's hard to believe that now. Once, they lined the children up and beat them into compliance. The first generation was always the hardest to subdue and after that their parents did most of the job for them.

It was either comply or be beaten, comply or don't get food.

Back then, kids would throw punches with their balled up fists and call each other names, the adults would deal with the consequences and the problem is solved just like that.

For Doyoung, the bullying began when he started getting better grades than the _‘smart students’._

His teachers wondered why he was so timid, always alone. He never played with the other kids. He never talked to anyone during recess nor touch the swings. For years he kept to himself and enjoyed his solitude.

He did his best being a good kid, answering the teachers' questions whenever they try to tell him to speak up more, urging him slowly to open up. It was quite a process. In turn, he unconsciously gave out precise answers even beyond his teachers' knowledge, beyond what they taught, beyond what they even considered as possible.

They praised him. 

_"Doyoung-ah you're a genius!"_

_"How does he know so much? This kid will be going places I tell you."_

_"What a smart child. His parents must be so proud!"_

But he didn't let their false glorification get to his head, just like his father had always told him. He told Doyoung that if he was easily swayed with shallow praises then their words would only be what he would aim to be his whole life. His father told him he was destined for something more, something even greater, but Doyoung never understood what he really meant.

For a while, Doyoung was content living in a bubble where people called him special. That was until other people started paying attention to him too.

_"He cheated! I saw him!"_

_"A dead mother? Pity. No wonder that child has no manners or sense of decency."_

_"His father's a drunkard. I heard they have debts because the old man spent it all gambling."_

_"Poor child."_

He vividly remembers their words only growing more vicious by the day, too much for a child to hear. But Doyoung was never a child in the first place.

High school was _different_. Because it was where things got even more brutal.

In high school, people were way more savage and unforgiving. They didn't hesitate, nor take their time. Adolescents had no mercy. They were like rabid dogs waiting to sink their teeth on those they find vulnerable.

It's as if making other people's lives worse than theirs was a competition.

It was a silly little game they were all forced to play. 

For someone unfortunate like him, Doyoung knows, in a place like this, he's an easy target. They would find his every weakness and burn him at the stake. They would dance to the beat of the painstakingly slow rhythm of his burial march.

He's heard it all anyway. It wouldn't hurt him anymore. _When people talk behind your back, the only solution is to pretend you don't hear anything._

Playing the overly good student they only see him to be.

It wasn't much but usually with his head down and the attempt at a weak impersonation of a chamelion in camouflage, he really thought he was invisible to his peers.

But that proved to be impossible.

"Can anyone tell me the limit of the function written on the board?" Yang-seonsangnim voices out as he paces the front of the room.

The classroom was supposed to be Doyoung's salvation. When he walked in here years ago he thought he was in a place where nothing could daunt him because he already knew more than most.

But Doyoung was wrong.

He knew of the ink on papery leaves that will always stay, even though centuries may pass. Of secondhand book stalls, tatty paperbacks with curled up corners, hardbacks with their once glossy dust jackets missing, a leather bound volume with peeling gold lettering. Of novels by the tonne, crime, science fiction, travel, biographies, languages and large encyclopedias with their bindings cracked.

All his life he had focused so much on filling his curious mind with words, not knowing that years later he wouldn't even have the voice to speak them.

The whole class was silent, only to look in his direction. Their heads all twisted at the same time, reminding Doyoung of puppets with broken necks, along with the fact that this was the only time his classmates were ever so in sync with each other.

Staring had become their only form of communication.

He shifts in his chair, feeling uncomfortable at their challenging gazes. He glances at the board, familiar symbols and numbers registering in his mind, then gulps before opening his mouth to speak the correct answer. 

But before he could, a voice from behind him resonates much to everyone's anticipation.

"The function is undefined, _seonsaengnim_ ," Jung Jaehyun answers.

A collective thought engulfed the students of the room, unnoticed by the only adult. When Jung Jaehyun opened his mouth, they knew. 

The war was beginning.

Staring has become something of an art form in their classroom. The students have unanimously agreed upon themselves that the first to avert their eyes is the loser, and that means subservient, weaker. Every word spoken was a step closer to the edge of the cliff. You have to be able to back it up or at least look like you can. 

That was never a problem for Doyoung who had ever since mastered the skill of ignoring their gazes. This was once an environment he knew he wasn't afraid of.

_Calculus was a walk in the park._

That is until Jung Jaehyun came in all his perfect and competitive glory.

"That is correct, Jaehyun," Yang- _seonsangnim_ says from where he stood, unbothered by the evident tension in his classroom. He then shifts to look at Doyoung straight in the eye. 

To others, Yang-seonsangnim as well as the rest of the teachers looked at their best student so normally it would be hard to imagine that Doyoung hated their expectations of him with a passion.

"Doyoung. Could you explain to the class why that is?"

_The question was fucking answered already. They always do this to me._

His classmates' expressions looked like they were watching a fucking movie. And they were enjoying every single second of it.

Doyoung often wonders if Yang-seonsangnim was completely numb to the competitive nature of one of his students sitting in every Calculus lesson, or if he just pretends to remain oblivious to children's petty fights for dominance. The rivalry was certainly present ever since the beginning of the semester, even the other students weren't able to ignore it. Especially now that they were in their last year.

"Well- uhm- Vertical asymptotes are defined at x values that make the denominator of the rational function equal to 0 and therefore the function is undefined at these values," Doyoung tries to explains in a single breath. 

"I didn't expect anything less. Correct." Yang-seonsangnim smiles at him like a proud father.

Doyoung felt feverish, face flushing at the unnecessary compliment. 

He heard a quiet _"tsk"_ from behind him, knowing fully well who it came from.

He grasps his pen, scribbling spirals of black continuously on the notebook Jinyoung gave him. He bites his lower lip, almost drawing out blood.

Doyoung doesn't dare turn his head to look back, fully aware that if he did so, Jung Jaehyun's unwavering glare and seething chagrin would come back to frequent him in his wet dreams.

  
. . .

"-and then Yang- _seonsangnim_ asked him to answer _another_ question! Can you believe the nerve-

"Jaehyun, what the fuck are you so competitive for?" Johnny interrupts his dramatic story telling, letting out an exasperated laughter from his seat. "The dude has a dead mother. You're telling us you're losing your cool because he's being given way more attention than you in Calculus class? He's pretty smart and deserves the recognition as far as I'm concerned. In the end, it's not like you have anything to lose either."

"That's-"

"He's losing his pride, that's what," Taeyong adds to the conversation as he takes a bite of an apple, breaking it between his teeth with a soft crunch.

Jaehyun looks at Yuta for support but instead was met with a face that radiated complete smugness.

"Why are we friends?" Jaehyun sighs.

The four of them were sitting in their usual table between a cacophony of numerous chatter. The students talk quietly, but their hushed whispers all accumulate to a buzzing noise everyone becomes accustomed to if they stayed long enough. 

The cafeteria was like a cemetery for melamine. It covered the counters. It covered the tables. And of course, it peeled at the edges revealing blackened sticky plywood beneath. The servers would have done well in a funeral home for all the smiling they did. The food had a greyish quality - washed out and overcooked. The vegetables were mush, the meat was chewy and the puddings were dry. The students filed past, and even though their stomachs rumbled, they were as enthusiastic as slaughterhouse pigs.

To Jaehyun, describing the taste of the food here is like describing his favourite shade of graphite pencil. In the end it really doesn't matter what he asked for or what he wanted. Because he'd get the same over-cooked grey offering on it's grey plate with it's grey taste.

He notices that others didn't have any problem consuming their meals. Jaehyun often wonders if he's the only one who finds the food offending.

However, what the food lacked in flavour it more than made up for in exchanged information.

Gossip was ripe and Jaehyun knew he was the very center of it.

"Can you please stop shoving that banana down your throat?"

"I'm gay, Jaehyun. There's no need to worry about other people misunderstanding," Yuta tells him as he tries to eat the banana in one bite, knowing it himself that it's never going to fit. 

Jaehyun wheezed at the pitiful display. _Can't this man perform the least amount of decency?_

"Oh look there's Sicheng!"

Yuta takes the banana out of his mouth, now broken in half and disgustingly wet with his drool and Jaehyun can only conclude that this is the life of a person who associated with someone like Nakamoto Yuta. He shouldn't have learned Japanese.

"W-where? Do I look good?" Yuta scans the surroundings in the most non-suspicious way and Jaehyun tries to contain his laughter.

Johnny and Taeyong beat him to it, howling like hyenas. "A slave to men as always."

Yuta tries to throw the banana peel at his face but Jaehyun was always quick to dodge flying objects. It lands on the ground to Yuta's disappointment. 

"But listen," Jaehyun starts, gaining the attention of the three men. He gestures for them to lean close. "I see purple bruises on his neck everyday," he whispers.

Taeyong looked at him with widened eyes, clearly scandalized. "Who? Calculus kid?"

Jaehyun nods in confirmation.

"How would you know they weren't just dirt or something?"

"I'm not stupid Yongie. I can differentiate bruises from dirt. And I'm pretty sure of what I saw."

Johnny let's out a snicker, grinning from ear to ear. "Wow Mr. Jung. It's like you're obsessed with him."

 _"Kowai~"_ Yuta supplies, giggling automatically.

"I'm not obsessed," Jaehyun hisses. "I'm a just very observant person who sees his back every single time in Calculus class. Those bruises? Those aren't normal. They should fade with time right? I check it every day and he still has them! Whatever secret he's hiding, I'll find out."

Taeyong clears his throat. "Slow down there, tiger," he says. "You mean to tell us you're literally breathing down the collar of his uniform to check if he has bruises? The next thing we'll know you're commiting a fucking crime."

"Do you want me to spit on your orange juice?"

"Jaehyun-ah it's a juice box. You can't spit on it."

"Try me."

  
. . .

"Don't talk to Jung Jaehyun."

 _"What? Why?"_ Doyoung startles. _Does Taeyong know of his little crush?_

"I said don't talk to him. Not even a word. Do you not own a single scarf or something? A turtleneck? Concealer? That ratty jacket is a sight for sore eyes," Taeyong complains as he wrestles Doyoung in taking off said jacket. 

Doyoung resists the urge to be offended because the _ratty jacket_ was the first thing he bought for himself. "Stop-"

Taeyong tries to pull it over his head and Doyoung curls up into a ball of protest in the sofa, whimpering softly and grunting at the same time.

"Hey Taeyongie, why are you bullying our little bunny?" A young man enters the waiting room, laughing at the first sight he sees. He leans on his arms on the counter, showcasing tanned biceps.

"Lucas- help-"

Taeyong finally stops trying to strip him and sits on the sofa properly, one leg on top of the other and his arms crossed. He takes a look at the mess he's made.

Doyoung was still panting, chasing air.

"Huh. No wonder they all adore you," Lucas randomly says to which Doyoung remains oblivious at.

Taeyong rolls his eyes, he could almost see all the way to the back of his skull. "Tell me about it," his voice dripped with sarcasm.

Doyoung finally sits up, fixing his crumpled clothes by pulling them down as he did so, not knowing of the fixated gazes that lingered a bit too long on his exposed stomach. 

He patted down his hair in hopes of the tousled strands not getting in his work. The clients didn't like it when his hair was already disheveled. _They would die to do it themselves._

Finally satisfied with his somehow decent appearance, he finally looks at a smiling Lucas which induced flashbacks of them first meeting.

He smiled like this back then too and Doyoung momentarily wondered if sex workers were supposed to be even this good looking. Lucas was a fresh face. He had a high nose, wide eyes and sharp features. 

Doyoung forgets he's the younger of the two of them most of the time with Lucas' obnoxious and playful mannerisms.

With the addition of Taeyong insisting on working here, Doyoung once asked their owner if they were actually recruiting models and not poor lowlives like him in a gay prostitution ring because he suddenly felt out of place. The man laughed at him, ruffled his hair, then fucked him on top of his office table. Doyoung never asked him anything ever again.

Unfortunately, it wasn't easy to not grow fond of Lucas, despite the distance Doyoung always put between him and his co-workers. He reminded Doyoung of a dog blindingly chasing a bone, tongue out and his tail waggling behind him. 

In this case, Doyoung concluded that the bone was Jungwoo, another co-worker who always greeted him _"Good evening!"_ even though his whole day was always completely spent drowning in shit. 

Falling in love with a fellow whore. It drove Doyoung mad.

How can Lucas sleep at night, knowing that someone he's attracted to was calling out another man's name as they're fucked senseless?

It was taboo. An outrage. Simply forbidden.

Yet here the proof stands before him.

Feelings were unpredictable. And that's exactly why having them is so dangerous in the first place. Doyoung had learned to set aside emotional attachment when he never needed it. He did his work, earned money, scrubbed his skin raw every night while pretending everything's alright, then repeat.

"Doyoung, you're booked for tonight," Taeil calls out as he enters the room. The three turn their heads to look at him. " _ **Room 9**_."

Doyoung nods and stands up, but a grip on his arm stops him on his tracks. He looks back to find Taeyong with eyes casted on the ground, a shadow looming on his face. 

"Don't do it. You know I can just give you the money-"

Doyoung pulls his arm back agressively. He can feel both Taeil and Lucas looking at them both now. They were so used to the sight of both Doyoung and Taeyong arguing, the latter always screaming at him as Doyoung in turn met the fire of his words with unbearable silence. No one ever made a move to interfere.

Whether it was because they were scared of Taeyong grilling them with his straight to the point remarks that went completely opposite his "posh and refined" first impression, or because they feared Doyoung would pretend they didn't exist all over again, he doesn't know.

He was just glad they weren't adding fuel to the fire.

Taeyong glares at him, his hunched form exuding an animosity that was like acid - burning, slicing, potent. 

Was the face he was making supposed to make him feel any less filthy? Doyoung figured, _no_. 

A pretty face wasn't going to change Doyoung's fucked up morals. That inferno was more than his heart could manage.

"I don't need it. I'm doing fine on my own."

Taeyong sneers at him. " _Fine_? You're here spreading your legs like a slut every other night and you're telling me you're fine?!"

His words rattled in Doyoung's mind.

Taeyong grabs his wrist this time, pushing the sleeves upward to reveal scars that, to his surprise, formed a word. Both Taeil and Lucas looked at it with nonchalance. "I know you fucking cut yourself. But this...this-"

Doyoung pushes Taeyong as he retracts his arm back, putting his hand close to his chest in a form of defiance.

 _So what?_ he stops himself from saying. So what if he enjoyed watching the blood drain out of his once blank wrist because that was the only way he could feel anything? So what if he sliced the lines so intricately with a purpose by drawing the same lines again and again every time?

They can't fade. _Never_.

Taeyong's eyes were hard-rimmed and fixed, so much so that it was as if he was no longer able to move his eyeballs, like they'd rusted into place. His face was a mixture of fear, disgust and shock.

"You...you fucking carved Mark's name on your arm?" Taeyong makes a noise of disbelief.

Doyoung pulls the sleeves of his jacket further down.

"You're a fucking _lunatic_ , Kim Doyoung." Taeyong's gaze fell like an act of violence, a glare to stop Doyoung from breathing.

Shame fell upon him like a weapon of the Gods, capricious as they are. It was a torment for the meek, the ones not bold enough to be immune. But for Doyoung it was cataclysmic; his face burned bright enough to outshine the sun and his mind scattered like a scared animal.

The people in the room wait for him to speak, to somehow explain himself. But Doyoung was a coward, and he always will be. "You're not doing a noble sacrifice by working here," he utters.

From his words, Taeil and Lucas both knew that this was already another stellar conversation for the scrapbook. It never ended well every time.

"I told you before. I won't stop _spreading my legs like a fucking slut_ until I get Mark back. Go home, Taeyong. You don't belong here. I'm not playing any of your games," he says as he rushes to go out of the room. To stay far enough from the man who already knows too much about him.

While people barely even made it to the surface, Lee Taeyong was already forcing his way in.

But Doyoung wouldn't let him.

The last thing he hears before he slams the door shut is Taeyong's mocking laughter. "It's the game you started, you fucking hypocrite."

. . .

_**Room 9**_ was reserved for their _special_ clients, always booked by the richest men in Seoul who were either lonely or assholes.

The room was cleaned every single day, every corner spotless. Doyoung almost applauds Taeil's dedication. It was as if he was maintaining a regular hotel that the elite frequented for a weekly vacation.

Once the door closes in this room, every pretence falls. The facade they show the world melts away. Things have happened here that go beyond what is considered valid by society.

And Doyoung, out of all of them, had entered this room more times than he would have liked. But once he learned the ropes and the nature of a scum's psyche, it was all too easy.

He knew what to expect.

So when he found himself face-to-face with the last person he would encounter in this desolate hellhole, butt naked like a newborn infant on a chair he was strapped to with leather cuffs, he almost laughs at how wrong he was.

He knew the possibility of it happening to him wasn't close to zero, but he never thought life would actually fuck him this badly.

It all started so normally, his eyes covered with a satin blindfold to disable his sense of sight. 

Doyoung didn't mind. He had weirder clients.

The man didn't say anything, groping his shoulders and running his hands downward on Doyoung's chest. He had rough hands, a surprising feature, considering that the people who go here hadn't worked their whole life. 

How fast they moved always gave it away. The ones who just order him to get on all fours and immediately shoves their package in his hole had been here once or twice. The deed is done and over with in half an hour. Doyoung preferred it that way.

But the ones who take it slowly? They were the worst because they treat this place like a fucking _sanctuary_. 

It was obvious they didn't have a single trace of fear running through their veins anymore, so used to not being caught in the act of something so illegal.

They take longer to please than his body can handle most of the time. But they payed more. So he destroys himself over and over again with that thought in mind.

The more people he sleeps with, the more chances he'll have Mark back.

"Are you beautiful as they say, _little bunny_?" he hears the man ask.

The voice was familiar, as if he heard it often. It was low, with a trace of huskiness and a hint of more power his gentleness would suggest - an educated voice.

Doyoung smirks coyly, knowing that move always drove them mad. "Why don't you find out?"

Just as he predicted, the man grabs a fistful of his hair, yanking his head back to reveal his neck. Doyoung fakes a whimper, as if to stroke the man's ego. 

He felt fingers undoing the blindfold behind his head with a sense of urgency. The black cloth falls on his thighs as his eyes adjusted to the low lighting in the room.

He looked at the man before him.

Suddenly, Doyoung felt the room around him spinning. He felt what little food he ate that morning almost rising back out. His breathing picks up a rapid pace, racing with time as if he was running on an endless track.

_No. It can't be. No. How did I not see this coming?_

He sat there, wishing he was suddenly blind or for someone to gouge his eyes out.

Even he couldn't believe the name that escaped his lips, a slow realization that teared him apart inside.

_"Principal Jung?"_

They both knew it wasn't a question, just a denial to the truth that was presented before them, as if it was predestined.

When the man looks at him in equal shock, Doyoung registers a single thing in his mind.

  
_Oh how the mighty have fallen._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Kowai - Japanese translation of "scary" (hello fellow weebs)  
> *Please don't cut yourself. It wouldn't end the pain. I had a friend who opened up to me about attempting to slit her wrists when she was in a very bad place. You're not in the right mindset. Please talk to the people in your life. They love you. Or just someone. Seek therapy. Don't be like Doyoung. Life is like that sometimes. Just like mark says "it's a long ass ride" but don't let the journey kill you. You're a bad bitch and you got this ୧☉□☉୨ 
> 
> THANK YOU FOR READING AS ALWAYS


	4. Sneaky, greedy, money-seeking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My search history is forever tainted by this fanfic ⊙▽⊙
> 
> Oh but please don't assume the things written here are 100% accurate. I did my best but ended up staring at a Wikipedia page and just thought "fuck it I ain't reading that"
> 
> Your support is appreciated~

In his moment of initial panic, Doyoung's brain stutters, every single part of him on pause while rampaging thoughts slowly register in his mind.

_He knows. He knows now._

It was like his life flashed before his eyes.

Jung Hajoon's cold stare is enough to render him silent, the long list of excuses he was about to say instantly forgotten in the midst of hyperventilating and perhaps an early heart attack. A prelude to his death. 

However, unlike Doyoung, shock didn't linger in the man's face, as if the emotion just managed to pass by. In the single second Doyoung managed to drag himself back to reality, what he perceived more terrifying than the situation they found themselves in, is how quickly the man had already managed to compose himself. 

Almost as if being expressionless was his natural talent.

"Student #0127. Kim Doyoung," Hajoon spoke every syllable with cold formality, urging within him a sense of deja vu. He called his name numerous times before. When he shook Doyoung's hand to congratulate him after every honor he brought to his beloved institution, telling all the students that he was a role model to them all. 

He wonders if the man had changed his mind.

The mention of his name doesn't do anything to the already unwavering attention he's solely directing at the individual in front of him.

However, what Doyoung found truly interesting, is that beneath his timbre of upper class arrogance, what the man didn't manage to hide was the obvious tone of his amusement.

"Top marks, no demerits, no warnings, a flawless record...You certainly are bold aren't you?"

Hajoon steps one foot backward, the sound the sole of his shoe made echoing around them. Doyoung didn't miss the movement.

The older was quick to lean back so naturally it almost seemed like he planned it. As if he wanted Doyoung to think he was retreating. He didn't take that single step backwards for no reason. He did it to analyze what move to do next.

_But why?_

Doyoung knows the man was no coward. He would've walked out the door the moment he took off the blindfold and saw Doyoung's face by now as if it was an abomination. He would have ruined everything Doyoung had worked for all his life without a single trace of guilt. He could just bestow his money to the court of law as if they were plain pieces of paper that had no value, and at the same time manipulate them into thinking he was a man who drank holy water regularly instead of the purified and overexpensive ones that tasted the same.

Unless...

It wasn't only Doyoung who was staring death in the face. _It was them both._

The realization came to Doyoung in a millisecond. That's exactly what he has to prove to the bastard if he wanted to get out of this alive.

Jung Hajoon was a dangerous adversary. But Doyoung knew danger like the back of his hand. In the next moments, the words that would come out of his mouth can result to either life or death. 

So he searches in the deepest parts of his brain for an answer, all the blood in his system rushing like puzzle pieces meant to fill the gaps of a bigger picture. He didn't even think this hard when he was answering his high school scholarship exam, which was infamous among the students to be equivalent to the question _"is water wet?"_

Does he think he's the smartest high school student currently living in the 21st century just because he got full marks on an exam others dismissed as _fucking bullshit for_ they didn't have the ability to accept their idiocy? No.

But he does consider himself the _poorest_ and _smartest_ high school student currently living in the 21st century.

A title which he wouldn't be able to keep if he died right now.

So he uses his head at half its maximum capacity.

In an instant, despite the waves of fear lingering in his very being, a falsified calm washes over Doyoung's face. A mask he had longed mastered as if it was meant to be worn at this exact moment. 

He looks at the man directly with the same intensity, a silent provocation in his eyes.

_I haven't lost yet._

Jung Hajoon's lip curls into a upward as if he knew exactly what Doyoung was trying to do, his sharp canines gleaming in the light. Doyoung almost believes him if it weren't for the fact that he was doing the exact same thing. He wouldn't let this _motherfucker_ eat him whole.

To the man, the rest of the room is probably only a meaningless backdrop, a mere stage for the real show to begin. If Jung Hajoon had every known failure in his life, it didn't show anywhere in his face. Everything from the way he held himself, to the way he spoke, to that look of unassailable confidence in his eye said he was capable of everything.

And he was.

Hajoon smiles at him, the same way he did when Doyoung presented him the trophy for winning the National Math Triathlon despite being a first year. 

"I believe you're supposed to be doing homework and studying for finals, the good student that you are."

"And I thought you were in your office drowning in paperwork. I guess we're both wrong then," Doyoung snaps back, not regretting his words.

It was a risky move. But Hajoon lowers his head to level with Doyoung's eyes, his form towering over his student.

"I suggest you be careful of what you say, young man. Let's see how much deep shit you're into, hm?"

_He took the bait._

As soon as Doyoung had set the stage in motion, it was almost as easy as reading from a script. The man narrows his eyes at him, a bubbling anger slowly rising deep within. He was no different than an animal who succumbed to his instincts, doing whatever it takes to prove that he was still at the top of the hierarchy. 

"The school code states that you have to request a permit in the office before getting employment. I believe I haven't received a letter about you working in a prostitution ring. Should we suspended you, threaten you with expulsion, or ban you from receiving your diploma?" Hajoon asks him as if expecting an answer. " _Little children_ who willingly spread their legs are not protected by the law, Doyoung."

Doyoung didn't waver.

"Scumbags who have sex with _little children are_ no different either."

Hajoon laughs, the sound coming out more sinister than he intended. "Article 305 of the Korean criminal law states that you are able to exert autonomy. Meaning having consensual sex is not legally punishable."

"Exactly."

"Oh?" 

Doyoung wears an innocent grin on his face as he looks up from his seat.

"If I told them you raped me, then it wouldn't be consensual, would it?"

"And _who_ would believe you?"

Doyoung points at the camera on one corner of the room. The light blinks red repeatedly as if to mock the man.

"Shit."

Doyoung had installed it himself long ago without anyone's knowledge. It wouldn't have ended peacefully if anyone found out. This sex den was frequented for the sole reason of being camera proof. They all tried to cover up the leaked videos an anonymous person kept on posting in porn websites to gain profit without anyone's consent.

Lucas had been so angry back then when a video of Jungwoo crying as he was made to drink an old man's piss made it on the internet. 

For weeks, they hunted for the _rat_ who dare ruin their pub's reputation and employees' honor, not knowing that Doyoung was just sitting there on the sofa reading a book about capitalism and _how to start an online business._

Hajoon raises one eyebrow at him, only now noticing that both of Doyoung's hands were free from the restraints that only he was supposed to have the ability to unlock.

His eyes followed the movement of Doyoung's now very mobile arms. "Keep up you son of a bitch. If I could bug the room with cameras without my pimp noticing, wouldn't you expect me to find a way to modify the cuffs as well?"

 _Cameras. Plural._ Hajoon erases the thought of getting rid of the one camera Doyoung even pointed out.

"Impressive," he adds in fascination, the corners of his lips only stretching even wider.

He watches as Doyoung unfastens the restraints in his legs a well, the metals in the contraption clinking with a loud noise. "Since when were you trying to free your hands?"

Doyoung finally looks up at him as he answers him tonelessly. "Before you even spoke my student registration number."

Hajoon resisted the urge to applaud the student sitting in front of him. So vulnerable, yet so fucking untouchable.

_A wolf in sheep's clothing._

"You aren't smart for nothing I see. Although, you could have done it faster."

"But then you would have noticed the noise, wouldn't you?" 

To the man's delight, instead of covering himself, Doyoung only spread his legs _wider_.

"You're a defective cog to society."

"And you're a malfunctioning adult." Doyoung waves his hand in a gesture of indifference. "Most of the whores here are minors. They don't have a place to return to because they ran away from their homes where their parents had abused them physically or sexually. I have a dead mother. I can paint the perfect story."

Hajoon slowly reaches his hand out to grasp Doyoung's neck, his eyes issuing a silent challenge. 

For the first time since they both entered this room, they finally wore the same expression on their faces.

"Don't even try to strangle me to death. I would press this button right here-" he holds out the metal cuffs that once restrained his hands. A red button disguised underneath the intricate design resurfaces for him to now clearly see "-and my fellow whores would come running to break that door down regardless if we're both naked or not. I can be the victim if I want to be."

The fingers in his neck tighten, digging further into human flesh.

"Your friends would also be in danger," Hajoon warns even if he had already predicted Doyoung's answer.

"Funny. You think I care about them when 10 minutes ago I was very willing for you put your dick inside me just to acquire a solid undoctored rape evidence," he replies with no hesitation, no sugar-coating in his words.

"The point is, Principal Jung, my secrets are kept for a reason. I wouldn't hesitate to trade _syphilis propagators_ for it to remain as one. I have no friends here."

The two of them remain unblinking. Doyoung overlaps Hajoon's hand with his own, adding to the pressure on his neck as if helping the man to strangle himself.

"The worst I can get is counselling and a rehabilitation program. But you? You would have a tarnished name. A dirty history you would never be able to erase."

In Doyoung's arrogant triumph, he smirks - just a small pouting of the lips, a narrowing of the eyes and a tilting of the head. It was so subtle, it was even more infuriating for Hajoon who caught a glimpse of it after Doyoung made the foolish mistake.

His smirk may not last long, but at least he'll live to tell the tale.

"Let me tell you something, Doyoung," the man whispers, his head tilting to say the words near Doyoung's ear.

Doyoung remains unmoving.

"There are people out there...who talk about things that aren't supposed to be talked about. Do you know what happened to them? They _died_. They fucking died before they could even say a single word." Even without seeing Hajoon's face, it didn't take an army to figure out that he was genuinely unapologetic. He was a rotten apple, corrupted to its core that only the outside flesh looked beautiful.

An illusion.

Hajoon leans his head to looked at every inch of Doyoung, just to see even a trace of fear grace his face, but what he found was the complete opposite. 

"It was all so fucking _easy_. It felt like stepping on a bug that just happened to be on my way. You can very much meet the same fate. But something tells me you're not afraid of death. No." He slowly loosens his grip on the boy's neck, a silent signal for him to let go as well. "You're afraid of something else."

There was no hand strangling him anymore but Doyoung can almost feel them still there.

He knew very well Hajoon had intended the feeling of being suffocated to haunt him in his nightmares.

Knowing he had already sealed his fate, Doyoung only leaned closer. "You can't tell anyone too. That's what this is all about isn't it? With all due respect sir, fuck me right here. I'll take you down with me."

Hajoon looked at him with pure interest.

"My, aren't you vexing?"

"I have nothing to lose. You on the other hand, have a fucking empire. Have you prepared yourself to watch it all fall down instantly like a house of cards? Wouldn't that be so beautiful? Your stacked bullshit falling apart."

Hajoon placed his hand on Doyoung's right cheek, as if he was a fragile living doll. Doyoung likes to imagine the man was only thinking of running a chainsaw down the center of his skull.

If he thought of something else, attraction perhaps, then that would make it even easier.

Obsession was always easier for Doyoung to twist than disdain.

Hajoon's eyes had never left Doyoung's. They were unsure before, but now they were only filled with certainty. As if it was an answer to the question he was asking all along.

"You told me that I 'can't tell anyone _too_ '. That only means that you as well, certainly have something of equal value to lose. Perhaps something even greater than the legacy I have built."

Doyoung doesn't respond. He can't risk this man knowing more. Hajoon slowly runs his fingers through locks of Doyoung's hair. 

"Tell me Doyoung. Can you keep a secret?"

_Checkmate._

"What are you trying to say?" Doyoung asks coyly, fluttering his eyelashes in mock obliviousness.

From the start, they were already forces to be reckoned with. Calamity against tragedy.

Doyoung counts every second in his head, as if he was waiting for the bomb to finally reach the end of the timer and explode.

_Three_

"What I'm trying to say-"

_Two_

"-little bunny..."

_One_

"...is that we make a deal."

Doyoung smiles at him so sweetly, a mixture of honey and lethal venom dripping in his voice. _"Shall we?"_

. . .

Vomit-inducing.

That was the current role of Jung Jaehyun in Doyoung's life.

In the span of two weeks that he had exchanged his soul (and body) to another demon, Doyoung wakes up in the middle of the night drenched in liters of his own sweat.

He would heave like a dying beast at exactly 3 am trying to catch his breath, stare blankly into space for the next hour, carve Mark's name to overlap with the drawn lines on his wrist using the same kitchen knife his mother always used, then hold out his bloody arm to pour the dripping blood on their father's face in family photographs.

By 5 am he prepares to go to school and avoids seeing Jung Jaehyun's perfect face like the plague.

It almost works.

Except it doesn't.

Nobody noticed. Not Yang-seonsangnim. Not Taeyong. Not even Janitor Han.

"You're here suspiciously early."

Doyoung raises his head from the desk as soon as he heard the voice. The nausea clawed at his throat as he tried to force down the bile.

Nobody notices. But of course Jung Jaehyun always just had to be the exception to everything. 

_Wow. God loves him the same amount he hates me._

Jaehyun walks in his direction with fluid strides and practiced ease. Doyoung's gaze naturally follow his movement.

He stops behind Doyoung's seat and pulls out a chair from his own desk, the legs screaming a violent shriek as they were dragged on the floor. Doyoung tries not to wince. "Do you not sleep?"

_I'm having sex with your father._

"What?"

Doyoung panics. "Di-did I say that out loud?"

Jaehyun stares at him with a curious look. "Say what out loud? You were just staring there for too long I was wondering if you had something to tell me."

As he remembers how to breathe, Doyoung whips his head back to the front of the classroom. The board was empty of any writings and he finds himself wishing that his mind was the same.

The thrumming pain on his wrist should've been just that. Thrumming. Painful. But the familiar sensation only served to remind him to remain alive.

Doyoung buries his head in his arms on the desk. For a while, he closes his eyes, the silence almost lulling him to peaceful slumber.

Probably the most sleep he would've had in weeks.

If it weren't for the same voice that drags him back to consciousness.

"Your pencil is on the floor." 

Doyoung tilts his neck upward for at least one eye to peek out. And what he saw was indeed his pencil in the floor.

It probably decided to have a mind of its own and ran away. Doyoung didn't blame his pencils. If he was a pencil he would've ran away from himself too.

After all, in his whole life there was only one person who he once thought didn't.

He leans sideways and stretches his arm to pick up the object, his long sleeves riding slightly upwards.

"Do you have something to tell me?" Jaehyun asks from behind him.

Doyoung buries his head in his arms again, knowing that there was no doubt Jaehyun saw a glimpse of the lines on his wrist. He ignores the sharp pain in his chest.

"No," he replies. "None that matters."

  
. . .

  
That night, Doyoung's dream replays a memory he hasn't seen for a very long time. 

It wasn't Mark crying, or unwelcome touches on his body, or the sound of alcohol bottles as they broke when their father threw them-

This time, it was of a dying cat.

He remembers it vividly as if it happened yesterday.

The rain fell softly as if it knew of the hardships both behind and ahead. Perhaps that was why 16-year-old Doyoung clearly heard the begging cries and whimpers on his way home from school.

Class had ended early that day when they were told a storm was approaching. While the other children waited for their fancy cars and chauffeurs to arrive, Doyoung decided to walk home with a blue folding umbrella as his only shelter from the rain.

He stopped walking and tried to find where the sound was coming from, only to see a carton box not far away.

It was a black cat. With fur of dull tabby and ears looking like something had eaten them and spat them out. Its limbs were long and its head a little larger than average. 

Doyoung took a look at the animal and thought of one thing in his head.

_No wonder they left you here._

Unknown to him, his body moved on its own as he was crouching down, using his umbrella to shelter the cat from the rain instead of himself, uncaring even if he was the one getting wet.

"I know how you feel. You must be starving. But I don't have food too. I can't even feed myself."

Doyoung laughed at his words. Was he so lonely that he would talk to a cat? Probably. 

He sat there only looking at the whining animal for a very long time that he failed to notice someone was already standing behind him.

"It's dying." He heard a gentle voice say. Doyoung looked up only to be stunned by most beautiful person he had ever laid his eyes on.

He wondered if it stopped raining.

It didn't. It was actually the person with drenched clothing holding out a black umbrella over Doyoung's head.

_How long has he been standing there?_

He looked...young. Maybe even the same age as Doyoung. He had the kind of face that stopped people in their tracks. The kind of face that required the sudden pause in other people's natural expression when they looked his way followed by overcompensating with a nonchalant gaze and a weak smile. 

"Hello?"

Doyoung blinked as the stranger waved a hand in front of his face. That was when he realized he had stared at the person's face for obviously too long.

In an instant, Doyoung's ears glowed red. And it wasn't because of the cold air.

"O-oh uhh- yes!"

_Kill me. What the fuck._

Doyoung considered burying himself right then and there. Or maybe even changing his name. The last option was to change his face but he really didn't want to do that.

"What I meant-"

To his surprise, the stranger laughed.

It wasn't the mean kind of laugh his classmates always did when he answered the teachers' questions. No. It was the most genuine laugh he had ever heard in his life. 

The stranger's eyes crinkled in delight. "What?"

Doyoung cleared his throat in hopes to save the dignity he had left, ignoring his heart that beat faster because of _a fucking smile_.

"What I meant was that- Yes. The cat is..." He glanced at the animal and remembers why he was crouching down in the first place. "It's dying."

"Can't you take it home?"

"I would but... _appa_ hates cats. Can you?"

"My family doesn't allow me to bring home strays."

Doyoung sighs. He looked at the cat dejectedly. "Sorry little buddy. You're gonna die in two days. If no one takes you by then, I'll come back to bury you, okay?"

"How do you know it's gonna die in two days?"

"Cats can only survive a maximum of one week without food.Their livers are not made to support their bodies for long living off their bodies' energy stores alone. It's been here a day or two. If it rains more, it'll die from freezing. Maybe even drown." 

He stared at the cat again. "It won't even last a day. But maybe I want to believe she's strong enough to live a day longer than that."

The stranger smiled at him, it was almost blinding. "You're smart."

"Thanks."

"And _pretty_."

"Thanks." 

It took more than a minute for the words to register in his mind. Doyoung whipped his head so fast he almost dislocated a bone. "W-What?"

The stranger only smiled at him again, a playful grin. "Here." He pushed the umbrella for Doyoung to take. "You'll leave yours for the cat, right?"

"But what about you?"

"My father is near here somewhere. He has a hundred umbrellas." He chuckles softly and Doyoung found himself unable to look away. 

"Are you sure?"

"I insist."

Doyoung slowly reached his hand out. "I guess...I'll take it." He grabbed the umbrella from the stranger's hand, their fingers brushing lightly. "Thank you," he added with a light flush to his cheeks.

The stranger's face lit up with content. He took a step back, glancing once more to the cat in the carton box. "I'll go now, then."

Doyoung nodded, watching him turn his back and walk in the opposite direction.

But before he could disappear completely from Doyoung's line of sight, he remembered a question he had meant to ask the stranger in the first place.

"Wait!" Doyoung called out, the rain almost hiding his desperation."What's-"

The stranger turned back to him, as if in slow motion. Doyoung found his breath stolen once again.

"What's your name?"

 _"It's Jaehyun."_ He smiles. _"Jung Jaehyun."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *appa - Korean translation of "dad"  
> *As Doyoung is a very observant person, you would think he would've noticed his pencil falling on the floor :D Guess who stood up from his chair, placed the pencil on the floor himself and pretended it didn't happen  
> *Dojae in the rain as Jaehyun holds out an umbrella for Doyoung who sacrifices his umbrella for a cat ugggh my weakness  
> *This story is getting darker every chapter that even I'm scared for my characters LMAO so I'm leaving a happy quote 
> 
> "When you feel worthless, remember that you were the fastest sperm cell!"
> 
> I enjoy reading those comments so don't hesitate to add in constructive criticism or something v(￣∇￣)
> 
> Stay safe from the virus everyone!


	5. Friends don't understand me anymore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is in honor of my crush's birthday. My birthday wish to the idiot is for him to like me back because these Korean men can easily take his spot anytime–
> 
> ANYWAYS
> 
> Stream Punch v(￣∇￣) I swear I was hooked on the first listen. GODDAMN THOSE VISUALS AND VOCALS.
> 
> This chapter is longer than usual. I got a little carried away ≖‿≖
> 
> Also uhhh  
> Trigger Warning: A little bit of blood.
> 
> You can just not read this if you don't want to be sad today– If you are, well buckle up for the ride then~

"Seonsaengnim! My calculator is broken!"

"Mr. Nakamoto, I believe it isn't your calculator that's broken. It's _you_."

Snickers echoed in the room, a collective chorus that disrupted the stillness. It was a silence that hung in the air like the suspended moment before a falling glass shatters on the ground. It was like a gaping void, needing to be filled with sounds, words, anything. 

The student assessment examinations occured weekly as an embodiment of every students' fear. When the end of the weekday dawns, so does their end.

Doyoung thinks fear is a shackle, a knife in the gut slowly twisted, a constant hammer on the head. Yet fear also evaporates like water under an early summer sun. When fear comes walk with confidence right past, because like the ghosts of children's nightmares, fear is an illusion.

Saturdays were even more nerve-wrecking.

The family phones in every students' household will ring to signal a warning. The calm before the storm. They will run to their rooms like professional track runners being chased by famished wild beasts.

Once the adults are made known of how much an embarrassment their child is, a punishment is usually due.

This is evident in Monday mornings, as most of Doyoung's peers would whine nonstop throughout the whole day.

_"They told me I can't use my car for the entire week if I didn't score better on the next student assessment!"_

_"Fuck off. Mine just told me I couldn't host parties anymore for the first years."_

_"Suck a dick Donghyuck. My parents took half of my allowance."_

_"Oh that's sad. Now you can't buy a brain."_

At this, Doyoung remains uncaring. Because his fears are rooted for a different reason.

His father wasn't usually home to receive the school's call, supposedly informing him of how brilliant his son is for maintaining the perfect scores every week in all his subjects.

On the rare occasions that the man was, he would pretend to be a proud father, tell the voice on the other of the line _"Doyoungie is doing very well at home, yes– yes– you have nothing to worry about"_ then proceed to aim alcohol bottles to his head as if he was a shooting target, shouting the same profanities that usually ended with a _"You should've died instead of her"_ before passing out of the cold floor. 

He wonders how a human being can hold so much hatred in such a fragile body. 

But then he realized how he was no different from the man at all.

Doyoung thinks fear is a shackle, a knife in his gut being slowly twisted, a constant hammer on his head. 

When people are afraid and under pressure, they lose all sense of rationality.

They get faster, yet less accurate. They start to see monsters instead of plain algebra questions, imagine horrendous novels instead of a single paragraph, and grim bars of a jail cell instead of bar graphs. The stress hormones don't choose what they fear, but rather amp up whatever they've learned to fear.

That's why society falls apart under ongoing stress – cracking high school students at their weakest, spreading hate and indifference like a damn virus.

For Doyoung, it's too boring, too repetitive, it's like a cage instead of a platform. 

He had been tossed in the air as if he were a bird, thrown into the ocean and told nothing, placed into the night sky and was expected to shine–

As he shades the last circle on his answer sheet, he glances at the clock only to discover that he has more than half the time left. 

With nothing left to do, Doyoung shifts his eyes to take a look at the students in the room. One looked to be foaming at the mouth, one was rolling a pencil in hopes to answer the 20 multiple choice questions they were given with pity, one was an atheist suddenly converting to be the most religious person in the world with how much he prayed, and one was–

"Mr. Seo stop reviewing your notes. The test started 2 hours ago."

"My bad."

For a moment, Doyoung senses the familiar feeling of someone staring at him. It had happened so many times, yet it still catches him unprepared.

_Is he looking? What if he isn't and I make a fool of myself?_

Slowly, carefully, he looks past his shoulders to the person behind him, only to confirm his suspicions.

 _Shit_.

He whips his head back to the front so fast.

_Our eyes met._

It felt like they were staring into each other's soul. 

Doyoung immediately feels the warmth creeping up from his neck all the way to his face. He wants to cover his even more flushed ears with both hands but doing so would make Jaehyun question that he was hiding something.

_But if I don't cover them he'll see!_

It was an inner conflict more confusing than any test exam.

  
. . .

"How did you all do?"

Yuta pales in his seat, the blood draining from his face. "Oh god I think I misspelled my name."

"I'm getting ready to be disowned," Johnny adds with nonchalance.

At this, Taeyong laughs. He was in the other examination room when they took the test but he was certain the two were as hopeless as usual. 

Last week, Yuta showed up with coffee in his system that was enough to power a car. Johnny ordered expensive eyeglasses even though his eyesight was perfectly normal. Turns out his notes were being displayed in both of the lens.

Taeyong figures it wouldn't matter what method they've chosen anyway. They would all manage to pass the test in the end, with Jaehyun getting a mistake or two.

Their friend in particular, who is nowhere to be found. 

"Weren't the two of you in the same room as Jaehyun? Where is he?"

Johnny shrugs. "He said he'll catch up. Had to go to the restroom."

"I can't blame him. I would've pissed myself on the seat–"

"Put a filter on that mouth, will you?" Jaehyun grins as he swings an arm around Yuta's shoulder. 

"There you are! What took you so long? Were you _giving birth_ in the restroom or something?"

Taeyong rolls his eyes. "Forget it Jaehyun-ah. Censorship isn't in his dictionary."

"How did you all–"

Johnny puts a hand in front of Jaehyun's still smiling face. "Don't ask us how we did. I'm pretty sure we'll all pass to maintain our reputations. Right, Yuta?"

Yuta winks at him cheekily. "So, how did _you_ do Jaehyun-ssi?"

"I'll definitely beat him this time. I'm confident. I rechecked my answers and everything."

"Ah. Youth at its finest. Let's go grab something to eat before you break out a speech on the almighty Kim Doyoung's downfall."

. . .

It happened out of nowhere. 

By the end of the day, before they could all go home and celebrate two days of freedom, Jaehyun was called back to the examination room.

The room was in shambles, as if a storm just passed by.

"Jaehyun, are you sure you passed your test sheet?" 

Distraught was plastered on their teacher's face. Her eyes were blown wide and her shoulders falling up and down as she tries to control her breathing.

Jaehyun glances at his friends to indicate his bewilderment. They looked as clueless as him.

"I'm certain I did seonsaengnim. Is there a problem?"

"We've been looking for it for the past hour. If we can't find it today then this could affect your final grade–"

"Wait. _What_?"

Jaehyun rises to the balls of his feet, the chair falling backwards and creating an impact on the floor that makes her wince.

He feels Taeyong's hand grabbing his elbow, as if holding him back. The look in his eyes issuing a silent plea that urged him to calm down.

Jaehyun takes a deep breath.

"Seonsaengnim– My...my grade is really important to me. I'm in my last year of high school. I can't afford to not have a score in even one student assessment exam. My parents require my records to be at their best."

"I know. I know. Don't worry I'm sure it's around here somewhere." The woman grits her teeth. She scans the room, eyes growing even more unsure as each second passses. It did nothing to quell the panic in their stomachs.

"You're... you're not telling your father, are you?"

"Seonsaengnim, are you seriously asking Jaehyun that? _Really?!_ " Yuta snaps, to which went unignored by the students in the doorway.

Numerous heads peeked through the door, the drama calling to their attention.

" _Seonsaengnim_ ," Taeyong calls with a sharp tone, it left the teacher almost cowering. "I suggest we call in the students who took the exam here and ask them if they saw anything. The more people we have to search then the easier the task will be."

"Why don't you just ask the person that sat in front of him to make the job easier?"

They all glanced to the voice.

"Choi Jinyoung," Jaehyun calls out the student's name, his face not showing a trace of emotion but his tone suggesting disdain.

Taeyong clenches his fist and tries to keep his feelings at bay. He knew very well who sat in front of Jaehyun. 

_Why does misfortune always follow that little bitch?_

Taeyong hisses at Jinyoung, eyes narrowing more than he intended. He was ready to bite the man right then and there, a simmering anger slowly rising from within him. "What are you implying?"

"Oh come on. We all know what's really going on here. The two most intelligent students of our school fighting to be the best. One struggles to dethrone the one at the top, while the other succumbs to the pressure of remaining there. What I'm saying..."

Taeyong pinches his arm, his legs fighting to ground themselves on the floor.

"...is that Kim Doyoung _stole_ Jung Jaehyun's answer sheet."

Collective gasps fill the room. 

"You don't have proof that actually happened!" Taeyong half-shouts, surprising the people around them.

His sudden outburst seemed to fuel Jinyoung even more, the corners of his mouth growing wider.

"Oh yeah? I saw him being all suspicious before the time ended! He was checking his surroundings to see if anyone was looking at him. Had no idea he was actually stealing someone's answer sheet!"

"Shut up you son of a–"

Johnny holds Taeyong back, his legs dangling as he kicked the air. "–bitch! You illiterate shit waffle—"

Their teacher looked even more scandalized.

Yuta cheers.

Jaehyun sighs.

"W-what's going on?"

All their heads snap to the doorway.

Jinyoung laughs from where he stood, the sound coming out ugly. "There's the man of the hour! Impeccable timing as always Kim Doyoung-ssi."

Doyoung seemed to be trying to take in his surroundings. Ignoring Jinyoung's remark, he walks toward the only adult in the room, their eyes following his moving body. His arms automatically go to his back, fingers twiddling against each other.

"Seonsaengnim...the students...they– they told me to see you. What is this about?"

"Doyoung, can you let us see the contents of your bag?" 

"What the fuck?!"

"Taeyong!"

"No– what the _actual_ fuck?! You're believing the student who doesn't even get half the test questions right? For all I know he's the one who stole Jaehyun's answer sheet and blamed it on Doyoung!"

"Taeyong calm down–" Jaehyun tries to say, wondering why his friend was so worked up defending a student he rarely even talked to.

Then again, Taeyong always had quite the temper. And Jinyoung was an asshole anyway.

"Seonsaengnim. I don't think it's right to accuse a student without evidence," Jaehyun tries to reason.

"The proof is in his bag! You're all fucking idiots–"

Jaehyun glares at Jinyoung, effectively shutting him up. "As I was saying, it was my answer sheet that had gone missing. Maybe it's in this room somewhere. I would talk to my father about this but rest assured. You'll still have your job."

"Jaehyun. You're a really kind boy. As much as I appreciate you defending your classmate, I think we should still check his belongings. The things Jinyoung claimed all make sense. I'm not accusing Doyoung of anything. I just want to make sure–"

"Cut the shit bitch. That's still literally accusing him–"

"Go ahead," Doyoung interrupts.

Taeyong snaps at him. " _What_?"

"I'm s-saying go ahead. I have nothing to hide. As far as I know...I had my bag with me the whole day. I never left it anywhere. Jinyoung wouldn't have a chance to slip in anything inside it, if he even tried to do so."

"Fuck. Fine. _Fine!_ Search his bag to prove his innocence then. Go on."

"Taeyongie she's scared to even open the bag now. Chill, will you?"

Doyoung takes his bag off his back, handing it to the woman. She takes it with caution, as if the thing was made with a ticking time bomb. They all wait in anticipation as she slowly zips it open, searching its contents.

The all watch as she places each item carefully on the table.

A pencil case.

A water bottle.

A triangle gimbap.

A black umbrella.

A book.

  
_Jaehyun's answer sheet._

"Holy shit."

The woman sighs. "The amount of profanity in a single day. Doyoung. How do you explain this?"

Doyoung looked more disturbed than them, his eyes shaking as he takes the piece of paper from the woman's hands. He wishes his eyes deceived him. But no.

It was Jung Jaehyun's missing answer sheet on his hands.

His feels his legs growing weak, trembling as he takes a few steps backward.

"S-seonsaengnim I don't– I didn't– I didn't do it. You believe me don't you? I won't do something like this–"

Everyone was shocked, too shocked to even say or do anything. Jaehyun was at a loss for words, his expression very much the same if he was stabbed in the back. Taeyong couldn't move, paralyzed in his place. Johnny and Yuta had their mouths agape.

They all watched as Kim Doyoung, their top student, try to make himself even visibly smaller in the room but fail.

His words were of no use in face of the evidence.

"I'm sorry Doyoung. But you do know you have to receive a punishment, right?"

"P-punishment?"

"Considering that you tried to sabotage a fellow student's assessment exam, don't you think it's only right for you to be disciplined? Your own exam score will be decreased by the number of points Jaehyun acquires."

Doyoung feels his heart drop. He didn't do it. When did Jinyoung slip it in his bag? How did he never notice? Suddenly, it was as if the air was stolen from his lungs. "But seonsaengnim! If he– If Jaehyun gets a near-perfect score...that– that would leave me barely a point!"

"It's the school code. If you have complaints then you should talk to the Principal."

The walls, the walls that held him up, made him strong just... collapsed. Moment by moment, they fall. 

It was a justice system that valued repentance over truth. 

"But _I didn't do it!_ Seonsaengnim! I didn't do it! Please. _Please_. My scholarship– if I don't get a score higher than 85% I won't be able to receive my student assistance next week. My final grade will be affected and–"

The woman looked at Doyoung with annoyance in her eyes, completely different from the way she looked at him earlier. "Ah it's always the _poor_ students, isn't it? That's not my problem anymore. Think about your actions. I can't believe you of all people would do something like this."

"Why can't you believe me? Seonsaengnim please. Please believe me. I'll do anything. Do- do you want me to kneel? _I'll kneel_. I'll bow my head–"

They all couldn't believe the sight in front of them. Doyoung was slowly breaking down on the floor, his face contorted into a painful expression, as if glass shards were stuck to his back.

He was on the verge of crying, yet he refused to.

Or maybe it was because his tears have long gone dry.

He was trembling like a newborn puppy as his forehead touches the cold ground.

Suddenly, a flash of light coming from the doorway startles them. 

_"Wahhh~ Daebak."_

_"He's really kneeling down?"_

_"Fucking pathetic."_

The students were taking pictures of him.

They were gawking at Doyoung as if he was some form of entertainment.

Jaehyun sees feels an uncontrollable anger rise from him. His breathing was rapid and shallow. He can feel his pulse pounding in his temples.

Burning rage hissed through his body like deathly poison, screeching a demanded release in the form of unwanted violence. It was like a volcano erupting; fury sweeping off him like ferocious waves. The wrath consumed him, engulfing his moralities and destroying the boundaries of loyalty.

 _Disgusting_. They were all so fucking disgusting. He was so sick of everything.

 _"Stop it!_ Stop taking pictures! Delete them-"

Hearing his words, Johnny and Yuta snap out of their trance and rise to action, grabbing the phones of their fellow students despite their oppositions.

Taeyong's gaze never left Doyoung. He stared and stared and stared blankly. Unknown to him, a silent tear escapes from his own eyes.

As if he was crying for the sake of the man, now reduced to something akin to a small child in front of him.

In the corner of the room, Jinyoung grins.

He grins as he watches the world of Kim Doyoung burn into ashes.

  
. . .

"Have you eaten?"

"Don't talk to me."

Taeyong sighs. And it was only Monday. 

"You're going to pass out like this. You won't make it till the end of the week."

Doyoung stops in his tracks, turning to face Taeyong. He looks at him dead in the eye. "I don't need your pity." He carries on walking.

Before he can manage to actually get away, Taeyong grabs his arm, a pull that managed to make him stumble of his feet. Even he was surprised at how easy he was to manhandle.

"Listen to me! We can still talk to the Principal about this–"

Doyoung felt his stomach churn. As much as he tried to hold it in, the pain came out like an uproar from his throat in the form of a silent scream.

_"No."_

It came out more vulnerable than he had intended. But it seemed to work.

Taeyong looked taken aback, unexpecting the amount of hurt in Doyoung's answer. "What...what do you mean _'no'?_ "

"Didn't we talk about this already? If you don't want me to pretend you don't exist at all, then pretend that I don't. At least...in this hell. Can't you give me that much?"

"But– but it's unfair!" 

"Nothing isn't."

And with that, Doyoung walks away, leaving Taeyong unable to say anything back.

. . .

_Food or Mark._

It was a choice Doyoung had to make as he walked his way to school. 

Doyoung thinks food could easily be removed from the monetary system and enable the world to eat freely. With good role modelling the new societal expectations would be adopted and we would follow those patterns instead.

It is because people are docile and cooperative that this system has been in place so long, and it is because people are docile and cooperative that the system is redundant. 

Such is the world of capitalism.

To Doyoung, being hungry is a normal occurence. 

Even an adequate diet is a luxury for the rich. Stomachs stay empty from sun up until sundown when people gather to share what they've found. The only rule is you don't ask where anything came from. If nobody knows, nobody can tell. Askers are informers, or so they say. 

What used to pass as skinny is now considered normal. Teenagers are considered fat if their ribs don't stick out.

And even then it's a back handed compliment.

"If you're not buying anything then leave my store. We don't need _beggars_ ," the owner tells him. She looked more than a day over 50. The wrinkles in her face reminded Doyoung of the witches in the books he curiously read.

But he knows his life was no fairytale.

The woman probably noticed he was salivating at the sight of the stacked peel sausages for too long.

Doyoung gulps. 

All he knows is that his stomach feels like a black hole every moment he's awake and there's never enough to quell the pain or even provide a hint of relief.

He leaves the store with both his hands and stomach empty.

Food or Mark. Doyoung chooses both, thinking of the sausage he shoved in his bag without any sense of guilt.

  
. . .

"Taeyongie hurry up! We're late to our next class!" An unexpectedly loud voice coming from only a few meters away surprises Doyoung. 

Surprise was an understatement.

He ended up jumping from where he stood, losing footing and sense of balance as gravity fails him. 

But instead of the back of his head hitting the hard ground, someone catches him, a firm grip on his wrist. 

Doyoung tries not to visibly wince as the marks there left by his previous client were still bruised raw.

When he looks up, he finds his face centimeters away from Jung Jaehyun's. 

He pulls his hand away with unmatched speed. He probably imagined it, but for a moment there he thought Jung Jaehyun looked at him with eyes comparable to childlike amusement.

The hunger was making him see things that weren't there.

"W-what are you doing?" 

Three male students approach them, Doyoung recognizes them to be the same people from last week.

One is Seo Johnny, who looks at Jaehyun in a silent question as if to ask _"what's going on,"_ glances at Doyoung for a second, then permanently sets his eyes back on Jaehyun.

The second student on the other hand, was looking at him. No, not looking. _Asessing_. Doyoung recognized him to be the Japanese exchange student, Nakamoto Yuta.

Lee Taeyong follows a few meters behind them, approaching them almost too carefully. 

Doyoung compares the four elites and the rest of their posse in the student council to a pack of wolves. Never without the other.

He takes a step back, overwhelmed at the situation he found himself in. He can already picture the added rumors on the long list under his name. 

"Doyoung," Taeyong says, interrupting what felt like an eternity of awkward glancing between them all. "He told me he wanted to see you."

An unsettled feeling in his stomach resurfaces. Doyoung wasn't fond of the increasing attention they were garnering by just standing there. 

"W-who?"

_"The Principal."_

In a beat, Doyoung feels like dying again. He resists the impatience within him to be seen in his face. 

_I told you to mind your own business,_ Doyoung communicates with his eyes instead.

 _Fuck you,_ Taeyong's eyes reply back.

"Thanks for telling me," Doyoung tells him almost robotically, noticing the others looking at them weirdly.

"No problem." Lee Taeyong smiles at him, clearly fake. But it was bright enough to render him speechless. Doyoung thinks smiles like that should be illegal. It was a deadly weapon.

His head throbbed, a crushing pain just on one side of his head that came and went in a pattern.

He pulls the sleeves of his jacket further to cover his wrist and turns around on his heels.

 _They don't know. You're fine. No one knows,_ he repeats like a mantra.

"Are you okay?" He hears one of them ask, but he can't quite make out who.

Suddenly, the rest of the world became detached, all he could concentrate on was the pain rooted deep in his head. He could barely hear the people chattering around him. All he felt, all he knew was the pain of that moment.

Then with another step, he _crumples_ like a puppet suddenly released from his strings.

  
. . .

"Fuck he fainted. What do we do?" 

"Oh I don't know Yuta. Maybe check if he's still breathing!"

Jaehyun managed to grab Doyoung's arms as he tumbled. That was when he realized the boy laying limp on his arms had already lost conciousness.

_He weighs like nothing._

He carefully places Doyoung on the floor, laying him on his back. He ignores the whispers from other students who gathered at the scene as he loosens Doyoung's tie, undoing a few buttons of his shirt. 

Worry was a permanent fixture on his face. His jaw was clenched as he places his index and middle fingers on Doyoung's neck. 

"He has a pulse. But it's too weak," Jaehyun says much to everyone's spectation.

Taeyong makes a gesture to scoop up Doyoung's limp body. "I'll take him to the clinic."

"No," Jaehyun stops him. "No. I'll take him. You three have a class to go to right?"

He had no doubt Taeyong would be able to carry Doyoung if the adrenaline powered him enough. Doyoung looked like he would receive a coma from just the wind blowing in the wrong direction.

But what's even more suspicious to him is the amount of concern Taeyong has for someone like Doyoung when he doesn't even see them talk at all.

_Who are you to him, Lee Taeyong?_

Jaehyun sets aside his doubts for later, his gut feeling telling him there was something more to his friend's excessive sympathy to a social outcast.

Taeyong looked hesitant at but there was already a crowd around them. He gives up and nods.

His eyes telling Jaehyun he was entrusting him the life of someone who was clearly more than just a stranger.

. . .

The school clinic was no different than any ordinary hospital room.

The walls are simply cream, not peeling or dirty, just cream. There's no decoration at all save for the curtain that can separated the beds. It was a room devoid of beauty.

Jaehyun finally understands why people take flowers to hospitals.

"Your friend probably fainted because of too much stress and lack of sleep. Have you seen him eat anything today? In his first year he was always here because of malnutrition and we could only make him take pill supplements. His father told me he was eating more than enough at home. Suddenly he just stopped going here entirely."

"When did he stop exactly?"

"I believe about halfway before his transition to second year of high school? Yes. I'm sure." She glances to Doyoung, as if afraid he'll hear the things she was about to say. "Do you think he's starving himself? Isn't it a trend for you teenagers to be skinny by skipping meals?"

Jaehyun smiles at her. "We're not exactly that close for me to know."

She returns the smile back to him, clearly smitten. "I see. You're a good kid. Are you going to your class soon? I was actually told by my superior to buy a few medicine supplies."

Noticing her dilemma, Jaehyun glances at the time on his watch for show. "Actually, I think I'm going to stay here for a while, just in case he wakes up. Fortunately we both have a free period. And I also know enough first aid if another student comes in."

She nods, already on her way to the door. "Oh I'm so grateful Jaehyun-ah! The plasters are on the desk over there. They usually come in with a minor scratch on the knee. The little rascals." 

_You're literally dying for me to help you get out of here._

Jaehyun laughs along.

"Tell your classmate to eat if he wakes up, okay?" she says to seal the deal, closing the door.

"I will," Jaehyun replies just as cheerfully, the answer leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.

Finally without any more spectators, a sigh leaves his body.

Jaehyun stares at Doyoung's limp form, the layers of skin molding into his bones as if they were being sucked in. His face was paper-white, his body a vessel empty of blood. The expression he wore screamed that troubles followed him even in sleep. He didn't look like he only passed out from exhaustion. No.

Doyoung looked like he was _dead_.

_What happened to you?_

Jaehyun grabs Doyoung's hand that lay unmoving. A soft laugh escapes his lips at the sight of Doyoung's still clenched fist. Somehow, even with the gesture of a fighter, he felt like Doyoung's fingers wanted something to hold on to. Anything. As if his fingers assumed the least form of defense he could muster the moment he lost conciousness.

His eyes wander to Doyoung's arm, covered in the sleeves of a worn-out jacket he always wore, the black hue fading into a washed out grey. It always disguised how thin he was. Underneath the clothing peeked out reddish lines that he couldn't quite make out. 

He had seen a glimpse of them so many times, but not in its bare glory. 

The unsettling feeling of never knowing overcomes his fear. He pulls the sleeves upward to slowly reveal four letters that seemed so intricately carved on Doyoung's wrist.

**_Mark_ **

_What did it mean?_

He had always thought the lines were random. To do something that mind-numbingly painful to yourself, it would take so much endurance. The least number of strokes Doyoung could slit his flesh with was fourteen. 

But his skin was an angry red, the scars weren't faded.

His heart ached.

As he sits there in front of the person he once thought he knew, Jaehyun wonders where it had all gone wrong.

"Oh Doyoung. You never once listened to me. I told you _so many times_ , didn't I?"

Jaehyun drags his fingers over the now scabbing marks, digging his nails. As the flesh splits, mild crimson liquid escapes like a lazy river from the barrier and seeps away from the wound. 

It was as if Doyoung's dreams had bled out right there on the his palm, everything he hoped to become, all that he loved, all the brilliance he would have brought to the world. It dripped and dripped and dripped to contrast the white of the sheets. 

Still, it drips silently.

With it, comes life. Without it, comes death.

He recalls how he had done it so _easily_ , slipping his answer sheet in the bag Doyoung just set aside on the floor. 

When Doyoung glanced back, Jaehyun almost thought that he was caught. He felt his heart jump to his throat. 

But to his relief, Doyoung looked as oblivious as ever.

He didn't even notice that Jaehyun passed him a duplicate answer sheet that he already filled out with random answers the night before.

They never noticed him slip away to collect his fake answer sheet from the teacher's desk, immediately flushing it in the toilet.

_"I don't need you to need me."_

Jaehyun casts one last glance at the still body, wishing Doyoung would _never_ awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *triangle gimbap - rice and other ingredients wrapped in seaweed molded in a triangular shape  
> *peel sausages - literally a sausage from convenience stores wrapped in plastic that you have to peel before eating  
> *The black umbrella in Doyoung's bag is the same umbrella Jaehyun gave him in the flashback :DDD  
> *"Who are you to him, Lee Taeyong?"  
> Aren't Jaehyun's thoughts funny ɷ◡ɷ He's asking who Taeyong is to Doyoung, and not who Doyoung is to Taeyong (HIS ACTUAL FRIEND)  
> *Doyoung would've made a lot of money from selling his body by now. Is there a reason why he still starves himself and refuses to use that money? ㅇㅅㅇ  
> *Yes, the topic of adults dismissing the youth's problems in wanting to be skinny by starving is one I'm tackling in this chapter. Society is so fucked up y'know.
> 
> *And lastly, our happy quote for this chapter is~
> 
> "Heyyyy we ballin'" 😂😂😂
> 
> I'm sorry. But seriously.
> 
> STREAM PUNCH


	6. Don't use somebody else

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amusement I got from the comments in the last chapter LMAO  
> You could say I was very (AND I MEAN VERY) entertained
> 
> This update is because it's my brother's birthday tomorrow  
> ＼（Ｔ∇Ｔ）／  
> All these people having birthdays during a pandemic–
> 
> Anyways.
> 
> I swear every chapter keeps on getting longer. Why do I do this to myself?! 
> 
> ENJOY THE MISERY

Jung Jaehyun knew he had it all. What's ironic is that he didn't want any of it.

People would follow him and worship the ground that he walked on, fully knowing that it was built by both his privilege and natural talent – a deadly combination.

_Hypocrites, liars, sycophants._

He can quickly figure out which of the three categories every person who approaches him belongs to. Sometimes, he even scares himself at how they perfectly fit the description he attached to them in his mind.

They were _predictable_ , and he was way too intelligent to fall for their deceit.

To be fair, he once believed in them too. That he was blessed to be given so much and that he was not obligated to give anything back for it all. People seem to think that he didn't need to work hard at all in his life because everything could just be easily handed to him. 

But that's not how it actually works.

He wasn't an ignorant kid. No. In fact, he was raised to be every parents' ideal child. He was capable of meeting everyone's expectations, even exceeding them.

He was a painting without any flaws. And he was convinced he was.

But this is where it all goes south.

_When did it begin?_

The compliments had started to lose meaning. Their smiles looked more of a mask, their expectations morphed into obligations, his emotions running out empty.

He should've known his privilege was accompanied by karma.

Jaehyun feels like a firework forever stuck in that split second after the explosion, both hurtling through space and static, on fire and frozen. He feels like the energy that seeks a thousand paths because the way forward is denied. He is a silent scream that's deafening, only heard with eyes that dare look.

"You've been going home late the past few weeks." The sweet tune of Jung Minji's voice grounds him into place.

Jaehyun looks up from his plate of bluefin tuna, registering the fact that he had stared at its beady eyes, wondering how the fish felt when it was caught, if it even knew it was caught at all, if it had a family too and died for their sake.

"There's been too much work in the office recently," Hajoon answers his mother from the head of the table and Jaehyun realizes the question was not directed at him.

He rejoices silently.

Jaehyun, along with Taeyong and Johnny had been working inside the student council meeting room after class and he hadn't thought up of an excuse yet to tell his mother if she ever does catch him climbing his bedroom window on questionable hours of the night. He planned to ease his father's worries by proposing a new school code for the new school year. Yuta bailed on them, saying Jaehyun didn't need to impress his father every chance he could get. 

But Yuta wouldn't understand. He had an older brother. The expectations don't fall on him.

Although all of Jaehyun's accomplishments have never ceased to make Hajoon proud, Jaehyun...wanted _more_. He didn't want a pat on the back. He wanted his full attention.

"Don't tire yourself out too much, father," Jaehyun says as his eyes glint with a teasing grin. "You do know old men need rest the most."

Minji giggles at his remark, making sure to cover her mouth with a napkin. "You tell him that, dear. He's been working too much. We have enough money to last us for the next generations."

"What can I say. I love my job," Hajoon replies as he lets out his own chuckle, revealing a set of pearly white teeth. 

_He loves his job more than his wife and son._

Jaehyun laughs with him, a sound so genuine nobody would've realized he forced it out of his lungs. "Literally nobody says that father."

"Jaehyun, just eat your dinner," the man teases him back. 

He picks up his eating utensils and pushes the guilt deep within him. If Taeyong found out he was feeling sorry for his meals again, he would laugh at him.

He never liked tuna.

"How are your grades? Still not at the top of your class?" His father asks.

Jaehyun freezes on his seat. The empty feeling envelops him once more and this time he wonders if there's something wrong with him.

"Honey, I told you not to pressure him," his mother adds as she stabs her own meal with the silverware in such a posh manner, Jaehyun almost believes she always grew up in a well-endowed family.

He heard the story of how his parents met when he was a curious child. His father was the youngest out of three brothers, last in line to inherit the Jung Family's modelling company. His mother, on the other hand, became the main face of that company even with a financial background that didn't impress the elite. By 16, she was pregnant.

When Jaehyun's grandfather finally croaked on his deathbed, he had no choice but pass on the company to the son he favored least. For the sake of keeping the bloodline intact.

Jaehyun's future was set in stone.

Years later, his father now owns a private institution that houses and provides privileged education to the most intelligent high school students in Korea.

His mother did not enjoy talking about it whenever she was at the right state of mind. But whenever she's on a drunken stupor, emptying out the bottles of wine in their cellar, she would tell him the same story over and over again and ask him one question.

_"Jaehyun do you love your family?"_

Back then, she looked at him back with such disdain. Every single time Minji asked, he was silent, only looking into her eyes. 

And from only that, it seemed that she had found Jaehyun's answer.

_"Do you? Then prove it. You fuck up and we're both fucked."_

She never asked him again. Maybe that was why he was more fond of his father.

Whenever Minji's sober, she smiles so genuinely and tells Hajoon she never had any regrets marrying him.

She smiled...and smiled...and smiled until the only thing Jaehyun sees are a thousand maggots crawling inside her rotting mouth.

The clinking of utensils snaps Jaehyun out of his trance. He quickly notices the atmosphere surrounding them drop. He felt like suffocating as he watched them.

"I'm not pressuring our son. I'm just reminding him that this family has a reputation to upkeep. What have I always told you Jaehyun?"

"Stand at the top, remain at the top," he answers, having the line ingrained in his mind ever since he could speak. His father made sure they were his first words. It was quite a day at the Jung Manor when his relatives discovered he was one entertaining toddler, repeating those words like a madman.

"That's right." Hajoon nods in his direction, smiling so proudly. "Did your mother and I ever fail to provide you with anything you need and want?"

"No, father."

"Then mean what you say. Stand at the top. Remain at the top." 

Jaehyun reminisces the moments his father always scolded him for hitting the wrong notes on the piano not knowing that he practiced without rest, or when he mistranslated a single Spanish word on his linguistics essay, or when he sang off-tune in the rehearsal for his aunt's wedding because he had a sore throat the day before.

The memories were always so clear to him. The man he saw as his father back then never changed. 

_Meticulous, sophisticated and convincing._

Jaehyun still yearns for that same man's acknowledgement.

"Does anyone want dessert?" Minji voices with the same smile he saw in his nightmares.

The walls don't talk in Jung Manor. But if they could, Jaehyun just knows this merry bout of make-believe will eventually fuck them all.

  
. . .

"How long have they been at it?"

"Hm." Jungwoo glances at the closed room, the screams unmuffled even with the door and walls acting as a barrier between them all. He looks at the clock on the wall with a grim expression. "It's been about half an hour now."

Taeil seems to share his woes. "That's longer than usual. What do you think happened?"

Jungwoo notes his worry, but deep down knows the reason for his unsettled expression. Sure, they were worried if Taeyong and Doyoung were to ruin their vocal cords from shrieking at each other back and forth, but they were more anxious of one thing. If anyone at all were to show up in the entrance right now, demanding for a whore to fuck, the client wouldn't exactly be able to keep a boner if two grown men argued so loudly in the room next to his. Usually the overabundance of the words _"fuck"_ and _"harder"_ that echoed in this place was a sign that people were having a good time. That was the reason they didn't soundproof most of the rooms in the first place. Now the words were used in the wrong context.

Jungwoo thinks some people may laugh at a prostitution den having an actual marketing strategy other than its whores presenting themselves as objects to be used, freeing them of the guilt in paying for sexual favors. 

But Jungwoo was convinced it was a solid strategy. Before he knew Taeyong and Doyoung argued so loudly that is.

It wasn't _"Fuck me"_ but _"Fuck you Doyoung"_ often followed with a _"can't you just listen to me for once you son of a bitch?!"_

"Don't you dare drag my mother in this conversation."

"Oh yeah? Guess what. She was a bitch when she was born, she was a bitch when she lived and gave birth to you, and she was a bitch even if she's buried six feet underground."

Crashing sounds of random objects would then ensue, only stopping the moment Doyoung says "You're paying for that broken window."

Cue a noise of indignation from Taeyong. "But you're the one who broke it?"

It wasn't _"harder daddy"_ but _"it's getting harder to talk to someone who doesn't even realize they need help."_

"Get over yourself Taeyong. You're not a saint and I don't need your help."

"Fucking really? I wasn't born yesterday. I'm. not stupid enough to believe in your lies."

"Then why can't you understand that I don't need your pity?!"

"It's not pity!"

"Oh yeah? Is that what you call your bullshit?! Why do you care about me so much?!"

A moment of silence. Then–

"Fuck you!"

He had heard the same arguments over and over again. Jungwoo may be clueless to what battle they're currently fighting against, but he knows how deep their wounds are. Perhaps more than they know themselves. One is so intent on seeing the war through even if he gets hurt while the other just wants him to stop hurting.

Taeyong and Doyoung never argued with their fists but each word they spoke seemed to mean everything and nothing at all at the same time.

Doyoung's excuses are carefully spoken, without drama, his words having an air of finality to them and no matter how hard Taeyong railed against them, nothing would change his mind.

Taeyong, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. The words that fly from his mouth are those he never thought he'd even think, let alone say out loud. His cold fury burnt with dangerous intensity. 

Jungwoo finds it amusing. How Taeyong's words spoken in such well intentioned purity, although aggressively lacking a filter, triggers something within Doyoung that seems to come from fear. Perhaps it is the way the two were raised. The words that calm Taeyong, scare Doyoung. And the words that calm Doyoung, scare Taeyong.

Both wanted the same thing, but were lost in how to get there, blind to the paths yet trying to see.

Jungwoo looks at Taeil with the same indifference, grabbing his cup coffee on the table. It was already cold, like depression served without a smile. It suits this place though, it matches the beige walls and the melamine desks, it's as welcoming as the unguarded strip lights and the worn dark blue carpet. The only thing alive in here is the ticking clock. The rest of them died some time ago.

He drinks his coffee anyway. 

"Will it ever end?" Taeil says as he drags himself on the seat behind the counter.

"Who knows?" Jungwoo replies. "They never tell us anything. And it's not like its their obligation to do so."

As if on cue, Lucas enters door with a bright expression which immediately falls as soon as he hears the usual sound of angry outbursts. 

"They're fighting again?"

Hurt was evident in his voice. Jungwoo knew Lucas didn't deserve to be here. No one with an ounce of sympathy wouldn't stay in this infernal region. But Jungwoo had stayed long enough to pretend he didn't care.

He has seen Lucas cry so many times.

He cried that day on the park when they first met, Jungwoo asking if he wanted somewhere to stay for the night without asking him anything else.

When Lucas told him he ran away from home because his parents told him he was a disappointment and they didn't care if he died, Jungwoo realized he still didn't brace his heart enough. He cared about people. He cared about Lucas and Taeil. He cared about Taeyong and Doyoung. And working as someone who really shouldn't, it was a daily struggle.

It was almost masochistic.

He wonders why Lucas still stayed if he's being reminded everyday by his bickering co-workers the same sight of his parents arguing whether to sell their child or not. 

They did.

Lucas immediately became their pimp's adopted child and voluntarily replaced him as the prostitution den's face.

Whatever's grounding Lucas here, Jungwoo doesn't know. 

"Fighting is an understatement. It's more of a presidential debate with their lives depending on it."

"Really?" Lucas takes a seat beside him, running his hands through Jungwoo's hair. He lets himself melt in his touch. "I like to think it's them loving each other, yet not knowing how to."

 _Love._

Jungwoo and Taeil looked at each other, then at Lucas with curious eyes, as if it was the first time they heard of such a word.

"What do you mean Lucas?"

He merely smiles and answers them.

"Argument and confrontation are merely opportunities to learn how to passively heal the monster within, after all."

. . .

"Why are you sad?"

"Suck a dick Yuta," Taeyong throws at him the unpeeled banana on the table, which Yuta dodges accordingly. He had long lost his appetite.

Yuta looks at him accusingly, as if he was betrayed. "My mistake. You're not sad. You're an _asshole_."

His eyes rolled all the way to the back of his skull. "Do you want a medal?"

Before Yuta could say anything that would for certain make him deserve the stupidity award, Johnny comes to the rescue as he slaps a palm on Yuta's mouth. 

"You've been sulking for hours Yongie. You weren't even talking to us and– _ack–_ " Johnny retracts his hand back the moment he felt Yuta's wet tongue pressing against it. "—dude!" 

To Johnny's disgust, Yuta looked proud of himself. "Don't _'dude'_ me Johnny. That's a hate crime against homosexuals."

A sigh leaves Johnny's lips, glancing back at Taeyong. "Look, Yongie. Will you please stop sulking?"

"Is it wrong for me to have my peace? And I'm not even _'sulking'?_ " 

"Oh really? You aren't?"

"No," he replies with a curt snarl in their direction. "I'm _thinking_. There's a difference. It's what someone with a brain can do. You probably aren't familiar with the concept."

"Oho? Thinking about what? Or should I say, _who_?"

"What the fuck do you mean Nakamoto?"

Yuta pretends to be oblivious, which just irks Taeyong even more. He glances at his surroundings in a manner that in no way screams discreet. "Oh I don't know. I'm not the one who's been staring at the strawberry macarons probably wishing they magically morph into Kim Doyoung's face."

Taeyong resists the urge to bury a fist in Yuta's face. Because he hit the nail so accurately.

He was indeed staring at the strawberry macarons wishing they magically morphed into Kim Doyoung's face. To scream at him? Bash his head in the hardbound books he always read? Cut off his legs so he wouldn't be able to go anywhere? 

Taeyong's still contemplating on which option to choose.

"I'm not," he lies.

They don't believe a single word. Yuta pushes through, Taeyong wishing he would just let it go. "Are you sure? Because I'm pretty sure you were about to perform a heart transplant when he fainted last week. And you won't even do that for me!"

"Tsk." He shouldn't have reacted that badly. But it was almost like a fight or flight response, his body moving before his brain could register what he was doing. He didn't know what came over him.

_That was stupid of me._

"So are you going to tell us?"

"Tell you _what?"_

 _"Do you like Kim Doyoung?"_ A new voice startles the three of them.

"Jaehyun–" Taeyong jumps slightly from his seat, the reaction involuntary and immediate. 

Jaehyun only smiled at him. No. It was a smile that held _suspicion_. Taeyong feels the adrenaline pump through his veins, and gulps in his mind.

It was in these moments that Taeyong doesn't think of Jaehyun as a friend, rather someone he had to be cautious of.

"Is there something going on between the two of you?"

_He wouldn't believe a lie I myself wouldn't._

Yuta and Johnny were glancing at them back and forth, clearly sensing the masked tension.

The gears were running in Taeyong's mind.

_How much_ _do I tell them to satisfy their curiousity, yet at the same time keep the secrets I have to myself?_

"My mom told me to look after him," he finally tells them about much debate in his head. If he answered right away, it would've seemed like an excuse. If he took too long, they would assume Taeyong thought about it. So he settles in the middle, just enough to seem casual.

Jaehyun's face was unreadable, as if it was frozen in time. He wasn't saying anything back so Taeyong assumes he wanted him to explain further.

"Nobody knows this, alright? I wanted to keep it from the three of you because I figured it wasn't important. But..." Taeyong gestures for them to lean closer, checking his surroundings if there was anyone to listen in to their conversation. But it wasn't important. All of them were alone in the student council room and most of the students would've gone home by now. There was no one to hear the secrets that they had to keep.

"I've told you all before that Mark and I aren't blood related, didn't I? There's actually...more to that story."

"Bro– is Mark your _child_?"

"Yuta shut the fuck up for once, _please_." Taeyong feels a headache coming, the blood in him rising at his annoyance.

"Mark's not my fucking child. We're literally two years apart. Do you expect me to have fucked someone when I was two years old?"

"Pfft. Oh, that makes sense. I mean– you and Mark don't even look alike. It's impossible for you two to be blood related. If you asked me, he looks eerily similar to Kim Doyoung though. What a weird coincidence. I mean, they could actually be brothers! But hey– why are you looking at me like that? Taeyong? Stop looking at me like that. I'm scared. Johnny? Jaehyun? Help me. Yongie's scaring me. Can you please tell him to stop looking at me like– SATAN'S BALLS MARK IS KIM DOYOUNG'S BROTHER?!"

Yuta's face fell faster than a corpse in cement boots. Johnny was unable to mask his surprise, despite his usually calm demeanor. Jaehyun on the other hand, terrified him.

Something flashed beneath the surface of Jaehyun's hardened expression and Taeyong hurried to investigate the sudden shift. But it was too late, the emotion disappeared before he could identify it, like reaching desperately for an escaped balloon; the string dangling so tantalizingly close but the wind pushed it away and it's lost forever.

After what felt like an infinity of the shock registering in their systems, Jaehyun speaks.

"Why didn't you tell us?"

_This was dangerous._

Taeyong could feel his heart almost lodged in his throat, but he had to come through if he wanted to salvage the friendship he worked so hard to keep.

He didn't kiss Jung Jaehyun's ass when they were first years for nothing.

"I told you. I figured it wasn't important."

"How did Mark get adopted in your family then?" Johnny asks.

Taeyong shrugs in completion to the role he had emerged himself in. "Dead mother, remember? Their father probably couldn't feed two children. I don't know that much."

"Damn," Yuta adds. "Kim Doyoung really threw Mark under the bus then? I mean– he was the older one out of the two of them and he gave his younger brother away? Just so he gets to stay with their father. Isn't that selfish?"

Taeyong wills the anger to dissipate. If he corrected their wrong assumptions now, against a person that was just coincidentally connected to him, they might figure out he's really lying about not knowing more.

"Well you're a spoiled entitled brat who relies on his older brother to upkeep your family's reputation. How does it feel sitting back without any worries of failing your parents? Isn't _that_ selfish, Yuta?"

A deep voice pierces through unexpectedly.

Both Taeyong and Johnny glanced at each other, taken aback by the change in Jaehyun's behavior.

Nothing in Jaehyun's face betrayed him, and Taeyong is reminded all over again why it wasn't any of the three of them who led the social circle from the very beginning.

It wasn't Johnny, who had the physical strength and tranquility to quickly solve the obstacles that came their way.

It wasn't Yuta, who had the charisma and wit to charm his way from the trouble they get themselves into.

And it certainly wasn't Taeyong, who had the versatility and perfectionist attitude to carefully map out the right decisions to be done.

It was Jung Jaehyun, who had the magnetic ability to draw them together– four opposing forces that sought out dominance all their lives.

It was Jung Jaehyun, who managed to somehow see through them all and prevent the possibility of casualties to ever happen. Together, they were _invincible_.

"Jaehyun– what do you—"

"It's fun having the freedom of not thinking about the words coming out of your mouth. Isn't it?"

There was a silence between the four of them. It was mind-numbingly painful to sit through.

But just when Yuta was about to hyperventilate from fear, Jaehyun _laughs_. The three of them stare at him with widened eyes.

"I'm just kidding. I got you, didn't I?"

Yuta's face of crippling panic morphed into a mixture of relief and disbelief.

" _Yah_! Jung Jaehyun! Don't scare me like that!"

Jaehyun was still laughing, Johnny smiling after he breathed a sigh of relief. "You weren't a theater child actor for nothing."

Taeyong finds himself smiling too. "Was that really necessary?"

"The air was too tense! I had to do it!" Jaehyun grins, showcasing the appearance of the dimples in his cheeks. Yuta continues to repeatedly hit him lightly on the shoulder.

"But nothing's really going on between you and Kim Doyoung? Aren't you two...somehow stepbrothers?"

"We're not even blood-related. I could hardly call him my brother," he replies. "Nothing's going on between us."

So long as he appeared nonchalant, they might just assume his lack of fear came from mastery instead of a raw nerve.

"Nothing?"

_"Nothing."_

Taeyong just wishes Jaehyun didn't see through his lies.

. . .

"Doyoung. Room 9," Taeil calls out from the counter. "He said the usual time so...8 pm?"

Taeyong narrows his eyes suspiciously. "That's the same client from the past weeks, isn't it? He fucks you every other day! Is something going on?"

A frustrated sigh comes from the other corner of the room. Doyoung doesn't look up from the book he's reading as he replies with the same tone. "Get off my back. It's none of your business."

"Then I'll make it my business."

" _Taeyong_ ," Doyoung warns as he was already making his way to Taeil who held a record book of all the confidential information about their clients and sponsors. It was basically the bible, but the satanic version.

Taeyong grabs from the counter the record book that Taeil always placed on random places with unconcern. But just as he was about to scan through its contents, Doyoung slams the book close, clenching his fingers on the side that prevented Taeyong to do so.

"You're hiding something from me," Taeyong says through gritted teeth.

"Just because you know one secret doesn't mean you're obligated to know everything else."

"Oh that just makes me all the more _curious_. Do you have something to lose from me knowing?"

"Not at all. I just don't want your nose sticking where it doesn't belong." 

"But I just wanted to educate myself. Perhaps read a book or a _million_ just like you. Let go."

"You let go."

"If you two don't want me to cut your fingers using this fucking chainsaw, then _let go_. I'm not being paid enough for this shit," Taeil says, already holding said chainsaw.

Taeyong and Doyoung both looked at each other, opposed to the idea of slowly letting go of the record book at the same time.

A visceral sound rings to pierce through their eardrums as Taeil pushes the throttle trigger, the engine starting up with a loudness that seeped within their bones.

Taeyong and Doyoung let go of the record book immediately, raising both of their hands in mock surrender.

Consequently, the chainsaw stops rattling it's deathly warning.

Taeil bends down to pick up the book from the ground, opens the metallic rectangular door conveniently placed on the floor, then enters a password in the safe underneath followed by 7 resounding beeps for the two of them to hear, locking the record book maybe never to be seen again.

"Why?!" Taeyong protests. "You were keeping it around for so long!"

"But it was always beside me all the time, wasn't it?"

A series of whines and grunts escape Taeyong. "This is unfair! I knew you picked favorites!"

Taeil plays deaf, covering the metallic door again with the blue rug. He places a stool on top, and takes a seat. It almost seemed like he was sitting on his throne. 

_"Do I?"_ Taeil smirks.

. . .

  
"You're literally killing yourself!" Taeyong screams at a distance as he follows Doyoung.

It was a Friday night and the sky was black tranquility married to a poetry of stars. It was the softness that called body and brain to rest and let the heart go to its steady rhythm. Night came as a reward of sorts, a restfulness above to calm the soul.

But that calm never once came to Doyoung.

He'd rather _die_ than give Jung Hajoon the satisfaction.

Frankly, it was beneath him. In a dog eat dog world, there was no time for seeking help from them enemy, let alone from the person who can stab him in the back the least he expects it.

So what he did was to stay after taking the student assessment examination, hoping that he could still beg his teacher to consider giving him back his grade. She didn't waver, blunt with her words that she wouldn't be able to do anything. Hovering over her the whole day resulted in an encounter with Janitor Han.

The old man had long been having back problems, yet he still mopped every inch of this institution. Doyoung figured they could've been the best of friends if Janitor Han was younger. They were pretty similar. In fact, he could already think of two similarities on the spot. They're both pitiful, and they both dealt with shit all their lives.

His teacher looked at him as if she was a changed woman, the corners of her lips extending into a malicious smile. "Doyoung-ah. Can you do me a little favor?"

"Will you reconsider my punishment _seonsaengnim_?"

"I'll think about it."

For Doyoung, that was enough. He figured she lied, but hoped the guilt eats her away every moment she's about to fall asleep. Maybe even wish for all her insecurities to be validated. Perhaps drive her to kill herself.

_Hmm. Too soon._

When he straight up enters the Dance Club's practice room, he didn't exactly expect for _people_ to actually be there.

And to make matters worse, four of the dancers were the same people that all had weird encounters with him, placed on the front seats of a drama he calls his life. Doyoung wishes he only imagined the two of them looking at him differently. 

For a split second, his eyes met with Taeyong's. Doyoung avoids the crisis only to make direct eye contact with Jung Jaehyun. 

_Ah this cursed fate._

He almost falters, but he was quick to wear a poker face.

"Excuse m-me." He quickly bows his head in a ninety degree angle, then scans the still breathless students inside the room. It was clear they had just finished practicing. 

He was actually told by his teacher to mop the room to gain her favor, but what Doyoung says is this:

" _Seonsaengnim_ told me to tell you guys to _'clean up the floor you nuisances or else I will drown you in the sweat Janitor Han has collected the last time he mopped the club room'_."

He bows his head again and runs, Taeyong following behind with an excuse of "I'll go first! My family's not home to feed our dog!"

Which was a total lie if Doyoung ever heard one. Mark has trauma from dogs because he was witness to Doyoung being bitten in his stead. Mrs. Lee told him she wasn't going anywhere soon so as long she was in their house, he wouldn't be able to visit his brother so easily. 

Moreover, they had butlers and maids running all over the place. It wouldn't take much time to feed one dog.

Taeyong catches up to him, panting hard from the marathon he had just ran. Doyoung stares at Taeyong silently as he catches his breath, devoid of the ability to actually to listen to what he has to say.

"You'll be seeing that man again tonight, aren't you?" Taeyong accuses, grabbing both of his shoulders as he shakes him. " _Stop it._ Stop doing this to yourself. You know I can help you. If you just–"

"I don't need it!" The volume of Doyoung's voice startles Taeyong, immobilizing him from his actions of trying to get through him by force. Then, silently, Doyoung mutters, "Not from _you_."

Doyoung shoves both of Taeyong's hands away without holding back. "You...your family. All of you. You took him away from me."

" _No_. You were the one who threw Mark away to be the martyr that you are, knowing that you'll suffer in his place."

Silence seemed to be the only answer Doyoung had in face of the truth. To Taeyong, it was like watching Doyoung fighting against himself.

"How much time do you have left?" Taeyong asks, fearing the answer.

"Before graduation."

"Fuck. Are you even halfway there?"

"Why do you think I was starving myself in the first place? It wouldn't be enough. I might just murder your mother by the end of the school year."

Paranoia seeps through Taeyong's bones. "I'll give you the money–"

"And where exactly would you get it from? Would you _steal_ it from her? Do you realize the fucking irony?!"

"Well anything would be better than you killing my mother just to get your brother back!"

"You know I can. And I will," Doyoung says as he avoids his gaze. "I'll kill you too if you talk."

"I know." Taeyong had long realized emptiness was Doyoung's madness. He was hollow inside and smiling even as they warp beyond recognition. "Is there really no other way?

They stood there, the silence unusually comforting. If ever one of them were to break it, the consequence might just be too much to take.

But Taeyong was never one to care about consequences. Maybe that's why he had bravely opened his mouth.

The words once again escape him without realizing.

"Why don't...why don't you just have _sex_ with me then?"

A noise of astonishment comes out from Doyoung. It was almost a yelp. "What the are you talking about?"

"It all makes sense now! Let me fuck you and I can pay you with how much you need. We can pretend it never happened, you can just see me as a client that so happens to pay you _generously_. In that way, you wouldn't see me giving you money as pity–"

"Are you insane?!" Doyoung almost stumbles back. 

"Are you going to sleep with the same man you've been secretly hiding from me? I won't fucking let you do that anymore. How much does he pay? I can give you _more_."

"Stop talking."

"Let me fuck you! It'll be done and over with in– I don't know. 30 minutes–"

"I said stop talking!"

Taeyong laughs. "Why? Are you scared I'll have emotional attachment? Trust me, I've been doing it as much as you. There wouldn't be a problem– what's fucking wrong with your face?"

Doyoung's eyes were wide open, unnaturally so. It was the first time Taeyong even saw a trace of fear in his eyes. "What–"

"Don't...don't turn around."

And that was when Taeyong feels it, the hairs on the back of his neck standing from all ends. It was a familiar feeling. 

_There was someone behind them._

Doyoung gazes past his shoulders, an expression of grim signalled the pandemonium about to crash upon them. Going against his words, Taeyong slowly turns around to embody the same fear he saw in Doyoung's eyes.

"How long have you been standing there..."

A face once hidden in the shadows casted by the pillars is illuminated by the moonlight. 

_"...Jaehyun?"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the moment we all collectively say "Oh fuck" XD
> 
> *This is how the social circle works:  
> Johnny - solves the problem immediately  
> Yuta - avoids the problem like a pro  
> Taeyong - plans the best way to fix the problem  
> Jaehyun - prevents the problem from ever happening  
> So basically with Jaehyun there, the other three would be useless LMAO  
> *I just realized the teenagers in this fic are all fucking insane when someone pointed it out in the comments. Basically no one's normal. Oops?  
> *HAPPY QUOTE:
> 
> "One day, you'll be able to tell your grandkids that you survived the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020."
> 
> I seriously couldn't take this chapter seriously BECAUSE IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE ANGST. AND I WAS HAPPY WITH ALL THE COMEBACKS HAPPENING RECENTLY. It was a struggle within myself ɷ◡ɷ


	7. It's so insane, the things we do in the name of love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amount of typos in the last chapter got me cringing ╥﹏╥ We shouldn't type when we're half asleep. But I still enjoyed the chaos in the comments anyway XD
> 
> Don't even read this chapter if you don't want to be kept awake at night. But who are we all kidding? You're gonna read it either way~
> 
> And worse, IT'S A FLASHBACK ⊙▽⊙

**2 years ago**

"I met a boy today.”

Minji glanced at her son’s face with contained annoyance. The instant Jaehyun’s fingers stopped dancing on the piano keys with practiced ease, the reaction was automatic. Her eyebrows narrowed to an accusatory scowl, a rare sight on her usually bright face. If Jaehyun was just an ordinary child, he would have ran for his life already and never looked back. But fate wanted it another way.

It was in these moments that Jaehyun wanted get under his mother’s skin, testing the boundaries in how truly far he can cross the line as the Jung family’s only heir.   
She never liked it when he stopped playing Chopin’s Etude midway, the continuous flow of notes cutting off in a sudden halt. In fact, she never liked it when he stopped playing any piece on the piano at all. 

Although, with the number of times he had done the same act of rebellion, Jaehyun wonders how she never saw it coming her way. The pristine expression she always wore in front of their guests contorted into something only he had the honor see. 

Jaehyun thinks it’s the ugliest she’s ever been her whole life.

“Focus,” her voice resonates only for him to hear in the soundproof room. Jaehyun resisted the urge to whine like a petulant child despite the throbbing ache in his wrists, his bony fingers worn out from the restless, almost savage, grim raging battle with the piano in front of him. Whining was literally a sin in this household.

To Jaehyun, the piece was almost like a body hurled with great velocity against an unexpected obstacle. The image of tossed up ocean waves breaking on a rocky coast, thundering and foaming, their spray splashing upwards, licking the rocks and quickly flowing down again. The notes fall step by step, suddenly drowned out by another thunderous rush that never seemed to end.

He used to love every single moment he spent in this room when he was a little boy, playing only for his own entertainment. When his relatives heard him play once, telling his father how much of a genius he was, it became a requirement.

It was endless nights of practice.

Even the music notes looked nauseating, permanently etched into his mind. The sharps and clefs followed him, cutting him as his fingers bled in his dreams. To be fair, he found it less aggravating than the dream he had about Stravinsky’s corpse climbing back out from his grave only to scream that he was a note late, the face quickly morphing into his father’s.

Weird dreams aside, his legs grew long enough to touch the floor before he even realized.

He was tired. A burned-out prodigy.

Minji’s watchful gaze puts him under scrutiny, taking notice of even the single second he slightly slumped his back. “You’re not going to the competition as an embarrassment. Sit up straight.”

Jaehyun fixed his posture instantly, imagining a long rod lodged in his spine. But he doesn’t resume playing. “Mother. Can I have a cat?”

He almost applauds Minji’s patience. It was time she remembered it was disgraceful to roll her eyes as a lady. She took a deep breath with her eyes closed, and then exhales the air out slowly. Jaehyun thinks it’s the countdown for his death. 

“Whatever for dear? You’re home-schooled for the very reason of not getting any distractions and only focusing on taking over the company. Animals are only a distraction. Are your cousins getting too boring to play with?”

“They were a bore from the very start, mother. Sohee is getting more determined to seduce me and Jinyoung’s probably planning a grand scheme to assassinate me in my sleep. Remind me again why you let them back in this family?”

Minji smiles coyly at him. “It’s not like they’ll be able to do anything.” 

And as always, she was right. 

Sohee is the daughter of the Jung Hajoon’s oldest brother. Naturally, as the family tradition had dictated, someone with boobs wasn’t allowed to become an heir. This automatically erases her name out of the list of candidates. Upon this realization, Sohee focuses her energy on trying to convince Jaehyun to commit the carnal sin of marrying her so that she could take at least half the money.

Meanwhile, Jaehyun’s other cousin was just a lost case. Jung Hajoon’s other brother had managed to accidentally impregnate Choi Yuri, giving birth to Jinyoung who spends his time sucking up to him like a leech. His parents never got married, resulting in the disaster of his surname. And according to his father’s words, only a Jung could be an heir.

Which leaves him in this position – a lonely boy asking for a pet.

“They’re _horrible_ companions, mother. I’ve perfected the tests this month’s tutor assigned to me. He wasn’t bad but he taught me one wrong answer to a Physics question. You better find a better one. I didn’t make a single mistake. Can I get a cat now?”   
  
“Well…I suppose if you really want one then I can get a Persian cat, or a Russian Blue-“

“Can I get a stray cat?”

Disgust is prominent on Minji’s features the moment he asked. He should’ve phrased that in a differently. However, blunt and direct was always their form of communication.  
“A…a _stray cat_? Jaehyunnie. Do you know what you’re asking me?”

“Of course, mother. A man is only as good as his word. You of all people have taught me to be sure of every single thing I say. I’m quite certain that I want to take in the stray cat I saw on the way to father’s school.”

Minji laughs. “Now why would you want such a _filthy_ thing?”

“I just…I guess I just want to. The boy- he- he can’t take care of it.”

“What _boy_?”

“The boy I met today. You could’ve seen him mother. He was the most beautiful person I’ve ever met-“

“Jaehyun dear. Please. All this talk about a stray cat and a boy you just met today? You’re not a child anymore. You’re sixteen. Would it kill you to act your age and not a smitten adolescent whose actions are driven purely by impulse? You probably won’t even see him again.”

“Oh but I think _I will_ mother. He goes to father’s school.”

“And how exactly do you know that?”

“He wears the uniform.”

Minji sighs. 

“So about the cat-“

“Jaehyun. You know that even if I said yes, your father will still be against it, don’t you? We don’t need strays. Don’t even go near one. You’ll catch some unknown disease and cause unnecessary problems for me to deal with. Why are you suddenly sympathetic? Do you want to think that you’re doing the world a favor?"

“No- I just-“

“Pity is an emotion we can afford. But we don’t have the obligation to feel any of it. Do you understand?”

“Yes mother,” Jaehyun lies through his teeth. He sees it so clearly this time.

Maggots. Her mouth was crawling again with maggots.

  
. . .

The next day, Jaehyun climbed out of his bedroom window on the second floor to sneak out of the manor. There was just something about that boy that Jaehyun finds…fascinating. It was a feeling he couldn’t explain. He was like a moth drawn to a flame, uncaring if he was burned alive. It was basically voluntary suicide. He had a feeling that boy held more fire within him than what he had let on. Because no matter the distance, his attraction to the boy remained constant, like a lion clawing at his mind, eating the pieces of him until there is nothing left.

_Attraction?_

Jaehyun scoffed at the thought. It couldn’t be.

They conversation didn’t even last 5 minutes. Underlying curiosity? The desire to meet people who didn’t fake their smiles? Being contained like a lab rat was killing him. He wanted to make friends, no matter how childish that sounds.

_Would he even be there today?_

Jaehyun walks the small distance to the same alley, already having memorized the way. He stops himself from getting his hopes up, but he ended up having expectations anyway. As he rounds the last corner, he finds the same carton box on the ground. It didn’t move at all from its place so Jaehyun concludes the tiny feline didn’t have any visitors to take her to a nice place.

_Did he lie? That’s disappointing._

“Oh. It’s you.” 

Just from hearing the familiar voice, Jaehyun immediately turns around, a slow smile spread over his features. 

_He’s here. He didn’t lie._

“Hi,” Jaehyun utters, not knowing what else to say. The boy blinks from where he stands, as if he didn't know what to say back from the simple greeting.

He approached Jaehyun slowly, glancing back and forth between him and the cat. He crouches down to take a look at the curled up ball of fur, the body rising up and down. "It's– It's still alive."

At those words, Jaehyun finds himself glancing down too, only to add something mundane to the conversation. "Hm. But your umbrella's gone now."

"It's fine. I have yours."

_That's an interesting reply._

"Oh? Were you planning to keep it if I didn't come back?" 

The reaction is immediate. The boy's ears have turned red while he desperately flails his arms randomly. Jaehyun resisted the urge to laugh.

_What an ill-mannered boy._

"That's not– That's not what I meant!" the boy exclaims, still panicking.

Just when Jaehyun was about to tell him he was only joking, the boy looks at him directly with eyes that seemed more of a threat than a questioning gaze. 

"Do you...do you want it back?"

What Jaehyun finds out is amusing. The boy... actually wanted him to say no. Usually people complied with his commands, afraid of the consequences. But this boy doesn't know of the things he is capable of. The usual tricks wouldn't work on him.

So instead, Jaehyun tests him. "Do you want to keep it?"

"Do you need it?"

"That depends."

The boy blinks again in that oblivious manner Jaehyun considers to be mildly irritating just for the fact that it seemed so genuine. The other part of him just thought it was cute. But that was the hormonal adolescent talking so he pays it no mind.

"Depends on what?" 

"If I can still meet you without the excuse of taking back my umbrella."

_Want me. Tell me you want to see me again._

To his surprise, the boy merely smiled at him as he answers with a slight flush to his face.

"I'll keep it then."

That was the moment Jaehyun realized the conversation was completely turned on him without him even noticing.

The next day, they meet again, the cat having already stopped breathing.

. . .

"I saw someone that looked like you today."

Jaehyun looks up to find Jinyoung leering at him suspiciously. But it wouldn't matter even if he was sitting down and his cousin with a tarnished name looked down on him. He still had the crown. 

He plays along anyway. _"Did you now?"_

The indifference seemed to irritate Jinyoung even more, the veins on his temples ruining his barely decent face. 

"But it couldn't be possibly true. Uncle Hajoon forbid you to go to school, even if he owns the school itself."

A playful smirk finds its way on Jaehyun's face. Jinyoung's accusation had quickly changed into a threat, but he wasn't even the least bit intimidated. No one would believe the piece of shit. Jaehyun could teach him better ways of cornering a lion, but he figured the sight of Jinyoung being chewed to his death would provide him better entertainment.

"Don't you think that if someone were to ever change his mind, it would be _me_?"

Jinyoung had lost all his sense of rationality now. It was a petty first move and his following actions were too weak. "I saw you with Kim Doyoung. Whatever you're doing with an honor student, I'll find out. And once I do, you can say goodbye to your inheritance."

"Hmm. Is that his name?" Jaehyun sighs dreamily. He almost laughs at Jinyoung who looked at him like he had a few loose screws. But hey, loose screws are better than not having a brain at all.

"Hands off, okay?" He pats Jinyoung's head, visualizing him to be a very tiny animal he could just step on anytime he wanted. The defeated expression on Jinyoung's face only augmented Jaehyun's claim. 

That's exactly why you're no match for me.

"He's _mine_. And once I find you laying your hands on him, I'll break your every single finger."

. . .

They didn't make a promise to meet ever single day, but Jaehyun sneaks out of his house on a daily basis anyways. Every weekend when Jinyoung is obligated to visit him in order to keep the family affiliations intact, he catches Jaehyun already outside the manor's gates on the way to the same alley.

"Seriously?" Jinyoung asks with much annoyance.

In return, Jaehyun gives him a look that served as an innocent threat on its own. 

_Tell them. I dare you._

. . .

The filthy little rat had a death wish. 

"I know you've been sneaking out of this house everyday. Don't make me tell your father."

"Tsk."

"Don't click your tongue."

"Did Jinyoung tell you?"

"Oh so Jinyoung also knew and didn't tell me? I'm impressed at how you think I wouldn't find out on my own. You're not allowed to go out of this house until the competition."

The sound of the door being slammed shut only served as his determination.

If Jaehyun couldn't find a way out, then he would have to figure out how to one last time in order to tell Doyoung to find a way in.

. . .

_"Sohee."_

" _Jaehyunnie~_ Are my ears playing tricks on me or did I just hear you call my name?"

"Help me sneak out of the house."

"If I don't see a signed marriage contract then the answer is no, dear cousin."

"I'll convince Uncle to pay for your boob implants."

"You son of a bitch. I'm in."

. . .

Jaehyun never underestimated Doyoung's ability to be unpredictable.

But when the first sight that greets him is of a man twice his size attempting to strangle Doyoung to death, he's amazed at how _unpredictable_ could be an understatement.

The tightened fingers clawed around Doyoung's throat, small ragged gasps escape him as he tries to scream for help.

Jaehyun's body moved on auto pilot, pulling the unknown man by his collar and suddenly slamming a clenched hand in the stranger's face.

He wasn’t thinking when he let out his boiling antipathy and swung his tight fist, too quick and potent, into the man's defined jaw; the impact like thousands of venomous blades piercing apart his clammed fist.

It lead him to one conclusion: that it _hurt_. Jaehyun was incredibly suprised at the pain that blazed up his arm.

Doyoung looked at him with astonishment and Jaehyun wanted to laugh right then at the face he was making. But it wasn't the right time. 

Aware of this, Doyoung grabs his wrists and drags him to the opposite direction. _"Run!"_

Doyoung ran like a madman and Jaehyun had no choice but to follow his grueling pace without complaint. 

Each one of his mighty strides were worth at least two of Jaehyun's. With the slightest of effort, Jaehyun thinks Doyoung could out run proffesional athletes, barely breaking a sweat and not panting in the least. 

Finally, when they finally covered enough distance, Doyoung stopped in his tracks as Jaehyun stumbled behind him. Doyoung leaned against the brick wall waiting for his breathing to catch up, grinning.

Jaehyun could still feel his heart rapidly pounding in his chest. The longer he looked at a smiling Doyoung, the more confused he was of the reason why his heart was beating fast.

"Who..." Jaehyun says between breaths. "Who was that?"

" _Appa_."

"Your father strangled you?"

"It isn't the first time. He got too drunk and demanded me to give him money so he could gamble again," Doyoung explains.

"What about your mother?"

"She was murdered."

_"Oh."_

"Yeah."

"This is the last time I'm allowed to see you," Jaehyun blurts out. Doyoung notes the sudden change in topic but pays it no mind.

"So... how do I sneak past all the laser tripwires and military guard dogs?"

They both grinned as if all their problems didn't exist. "I want you to smile like that for _eternity_ ," Jaehyun tells him.

"Me too."

He doesn't mention the fact that Doyoung was still holding his hand, while his other one was bleeding painfully.

  
. . .

"A broken wrist?!" Minji screams and repeats it with more emphasis. _"A broken wrist?!"_

Jaehyun winces from his seat, his unharmed hand unconsciously making its way to touch his bandaged wrist. Things weren't looking good for him.

“You're really testing my patience, aren't you? Where did you get your injury?"

"I twisted it wrong when I was practicing," he lies.

_"Do you want me to drag you back to them?"_

The moment the threat leaves her mouth, Jaehyun feels his ribs heaving as if bound by ropes, straining to inflate his lungs. His head is a carousel of fears spinning out of control, each one pushing his mind into blackness. He wanted to run; He needed to freeze. Sounds that were near feel far away, like he was no longer in the body that lies paralyzed on the tiled floor.

Jaehyun felt so _sick_. From where he curled up like a newborn baby, he could only see his mother's heels as he groveled at her feet. 

He didn't need to look up. He knew what face she was making.

"Look at how _weak_ you are. A mere mention of them and you get a panic attack?"

That was it. She was truly in control of his life and he couldn't do anything.

"Now, if you don’t want me telling your father about your childish escapades then you better stay away from that inferior little _rat_ and perfect your piece by tomorrow evening. I don't care if you have to come out of the competition with a bloody hand. What matters is _winning_. Your father already treats me below him as it is." 

Minji's feet take her to the door. But before slamming it shut and leaving Jaehyun to rot, she says one last reminder.

"Don't forget. You owe me your life. I can take it all from you the moment you disobey me."

  
. . .

"A piano," Doyoung says in observation the moment he enters the room. "I didn't expect anything less. I almost got lost on my way here."

"Well you got here fine, didn't you?" Jaehyun grins. He doesn't tell Doyoung this was the last time he would be viewing him as a human being.

"Will you play something for me?"

_Such daring words._

"For you?"

"For me."

Jaehyun walks slowly, prolonging the moment. Doyoung's gaze follows him, noticing the bandaged wrist. "You don't have to."

He ignores Doyoung's words, placing his fingers delicately on top of the keys.

"Someone sang this to me when I was younger." Jaehyun recalls a blurred out face. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't quite make it out completely. "It reminded me that I was safe despite the...gluttony of my family. I...I want you to hear it too."

Doyoung was silent, only gesturing for him to continue. 

Jaehyun breathes in, and let his fingers glide over the piano keys with practiced ease. With eyes closed, he ignored the throbbing pain in his wrist.

He doesn't stop playing until the last note.

In the afterglow of the serenity, Jaehyun slowly opens his eyes to glance at Doyoung's reaction. 

To his surprise, Doyoung was looking at the picture frame that lay on top of the piano. It was a photo of him, standing between both of his parents. The three were devoid of smiles.

"Your father is my school's principal."

_Ah. He was bound to find out sooner or later._

"Yeah. That's how we met. I visited him that day and managed to find you and a dying cat." 

Doyoung's fingers lifted up to caress the frame. Jaehyun wouldn't be surprised if he picked up dust along the way. "You...you don't look like your parents." 

Jaehyun's gaze followed Doyoung's, finding his eyes also fixated in the photo in front of them. He finds Doyoung to be meticulously observant. 

_It was of no use lying to him._

"That's because we're not blood related."

"You...you're _adopted_?"

Jaehyun laughs softly. "You don't sound surprised. But for the record, you're the first one to know and notice. What gave it away?"

"I just...had a feeling."

It was a weird answer. But Jaehyun thinks there are far more bizzare replies Doyoung had given him. "Fair enough."

They looked at each other in the silence.

Doyoung was the first one to look away. "That...that was beautiful. The song, I mean," he says as his eyes panicked to look in different directions. "Somehow, it felt like... a _goodbye_."

"I played it correctly then."

Their eyes meet again, Jaehyun's filled with determination. 

"What do you mean Jaehyun?"

_"You're in love with me."_

Something flickers in Doyoung's face, something Jaehyun couldn't decipher. Doyoung's reply came out braver than Jaehyun could ever imagine. 

"So what if I am?" 

It was Jaehyun's turn to look away, a word painfully coming out of his throat as of he was vommitting.

" _Don't_."

"Why not?" Doyoung was now frantic, the panic clear in his voice. It was clear he didn't think anymore before the words could come out of his mouth. "I thought– I thought you felt the same way. I– I wasn't _imagining_ it, was I? Jaehyun– tell me I'm not w-wrong. You...love me too, right?"

The words were laced with desperation, even only hearing them hurt his heart. But it wasn't the time to be weak. He had a duty to fulfill. "Doyoung...I would destroy you. And you would let me."

"What are you talking about?!"

"You wouldn't understand–"

Doyoung grabs the collar of his shirt, pulling them closer. "Then _make_ me understand! W-why are you acting like this so suddenly?! We were fine yesterday–"

"I _pitied_ you! It wasn't love, okay?! It was _sympathy_. And before I realized, you were already in too deep. This...is where I'm stopping you."

Jaehyun shoves the hands away. Before he knew it, he was on his feet and walking towards Doyoung who's slowly cowering back in fear. The volume of Jaehyun's voice only made Doyoung feel smaller. His words were cold and full of finality.

"No- You're _lying_ – you have to be..." Doyoung put his own arms around himself, as if to take shelter from the hurt.

"Listen to me Doyoung. And listen to me very carefully. The moment you leave this room, we won't know each other anymore. If I win the piano competition tonight– I can- I can finally be allowed to go to school and you and I would be _strangers_. I will dethrone you. I will stand at the top, and remain at the top. I wouldn't care for your scholarship even if it's the only thing keeping you there–"

" _You_ _can't_."

"What?"

"I said you can't. You're not smarter than me. You never will be. Someone put you up to this. Which one of them is it?"

"You're going to get hurt. From now on, I can only hurt you. So stop loving me, Doyoung." Jaehyun's tone was close to pleading, he was ready to get on his knees. "I'm not capable of loving you back."

"Is that what you really want?"

Jaehyun could only nod, afraid that if he speaks now, he would be begging Doyoung to stay.

"Alright. I guess _eternity_ wasn't that long."

  
. . .

The night before Jaehyun's transfer to his father's school, he dreamt of him and Doyoung.

They were both smiling. They were happy and Jaehyun felt like he wouldn't trade any of it for the world.

But Doyoung's smiling face morphed into Minji's. She was also smiling. But somehow, it felt sinister. _"Do you want me to drag you back to them?"_

_No. Please no. No!_

It was too late. He wasn't in control. The familiar walls of his house distorted into a dark room. In the center, was a woman who had her back turned from him as she sat on her knees. 

Slowly, Jaehyun smelled the familiar lingering metalling scent in the air. 

The woman turned to face him, a demonic expression across her features.Her mangled lip and nose were caked in dried blood, congealed and cracked. The now browning blood had drizzled down her face like so much rain down a window pane.

She was _giggling_.

_"Stay away from me!"_

Jaehyun's stomach felt sick and then one by one he had lost control of her limbs until finally his legs gave out, stumbling back on the cold, hard ground.

 _"Jaehyun...my baby..."_ the woman says as tears fell down her face. Her voice was raspy as if her vocal cords have been teared out. _"Come back to me Jaehyun."_

Someone grabs his shoulder and Jaehyun sees Minji's satanic grin. _"Do you want me to drag you back to them?"_

Jaehyun was paralyzed by the gravity of his fear. _"No! Don't touch me!"_

The woman was now crying as she picks up the bundle of cloth on the ground. _"Jaehyun won't come back to me? Why?"_

 _"Eomma is hungry, Jaehyun. You won't let me starve right?"_ The woman grabs his arm with a force he wasn't able to shake off. Still, he struggled. Minji was only laughing at him.

_"Let go of me!"_

When he finally managed to pull his arm back, the bundle of clothing the woman was holding fell to the floor, revealing an _infant_.

One of its eyes was missing, leaving a hollow socket. The raw skin on the round edge was torn apart, tainted by dried blood. Its other eyes seemed like it could see through Jaehyun's soul, looking at _him_.

The side of the infant's face was missing, revealing a nauseating sight. A drop of liquid fell into the hole of the infant's disfigured stomach. 

Jaehyun looks up to see the same woman staring at him, salivating at the sight of _human flesh_. He feels his whole body being overridden by fear.

The combination of the woman's weeps and Jung Minji's resonating laughter served to trap him even more, reminding him of a past he would never be able to escape _. "Do you want me to drag you back to them?"_

Jaehyun screams, immediately waking up drenched in cold sweat.

He sits up on his bed, hugging his knees close to himself. It was like he was a child again.

_She's not here. She's not here. She's not here._

But no matter how many times he repeats it to himself, Jaehyun can only visualize his twin brother, barely a day old, as the woman who gave birth to him performs the most animalistic act of cannibalism.

If Minji was even a second late, Jaehyun would've met the same fate.

. . .

"Are you lost?"

Jaehyun considers telling the boy _"No. I can find my way just fine"_ but he remembers his father's words. He wanted to stay here and not be locked like a prisoner inside his own home, he had to be on his best behavior.

_I guess it wouldn't be bad to make allies._

"I actually am. I'm wondering if you could tell me where class 1-A is located." He completes the sentence with a smile.

The boy looked surprised. "You're a first year too?" 

"Yeah. I was homeschooled."

"Oh so that's why. Unfortunately, I'm in class 1-B. But your classroom is just next to mine. Shall we?"

"Yeah! Lead the way..."

" _Taeyong_. Lee Taeyong," he introduces and Jaehyun automatically connect the name to his face. Taeyong was quite a good-looking person, like a 3-dimensional character from the games he played as a child. Jaehyun's father would be pleased if he made friends with someone like him. "And you are?"

"Jung Jaehyun."

Taeyong stops in his tracks. "Wait– _Jung_? You're the rumored principal's son?" 

_Ah. Not another one._

"News travels fast in this school, I see."

"You have no idea," Taeyong says with disbelief. Jaehyun doesn't warn him of another approaching student, leading the two to bump into each other's bodies. " _Hey–_ watch it!" 

The student smirks. "My bad. I only have two eyes."

Much to Jaehyun's interest, Taeyong speaks back with a greater amount of intensity. "Well if you stopped looking at gay porn magazines while walking in the hallways, then you would've spared us both the trouble, Nakamoto."

" _Gasp!_ Did I just hear homophobia? In the 21st century?"

Taeyong rolled his eyes at the student's remark. "And I just heard you say the word _gasp_. You disgust me."

As the heated argument went on, Jaehyun notices another student passing in the hallway. 

_Damn. He's tall._

When the tall student spread his arms to separate both Taeyong and the other student, immediately making way for himself to pass through, Jaehyun is even more intrigued.

"Hey! We were in the middle of an argument here, Seo!"

"And I was in the middle of _not caring_. What's your point?"

He didn't know why, but all of a sudden Jaehyun found himself laughing so hard, his breath came in quick gasps between unstopable giggles.

The three looked at him, completely bewildered.

"Taeyong-ssi. I think your friend needs Jesus," Yuta says in a mock-whisper, all of them hearing his words just like he had originally intended.

" _You_ need Jesus."

"Don't shame the gays."

"I think he's just laughing at your stupidity," Johnny adds.

"Well aren't you three just hilarious? I'm Jung Jaehyun. Want to be friends?" He flashed them the infamous dimpled smile that made even the gods bow down to their knees.

 _"Fuck no,"_ the three of them say at the same time.

. . .

  
"Alright settle down you brats. You probably never expected this since we're already halfway through the school year, but we have a transferee with us today. Please introduce yourself."

"Jung Jaehyun. I'm looking forward to get along with all of you." He bows his head.

The whispers echoed before the teacher could gesture for him to take the vacant seat at the back.

_He doesn't look at Kim Doyoung, and Kim Doyoung doesn't look at him._

. . .

**1 year ago**

"I told Lee Taeyong to break your legs today."

Jaehyun sighs. "We're supposed to not know each other, Doyoung."

"Well there's no one here so I can say anything I want. You should've chosen better friends. The ones that don't stab you in the back."

" _Hm_." Jaehyun ignores the remark, already planning his next action. Instead, he dodges the bullet once again. "Are you studying for the upcoming exams?"

Doyoung puts his arms on the railings, feeling the breeze on his face. "I don't need to. You won't score anything higher than me." 

"What if I push you from this rooftop? I would be the top student, my father would be proud of me, and you would be down there bleeding to death." Jaehyun looks at Doyoung directly in the eyes. "If I wouldn't be able to stop your pain, then you're better off _dead_ , aren't you? At least when you're on your grave you won't suffer anymore."

Doyoung breaks the eye contact, his flushed ears painfully obvious to Jaehyun.

_Old habits really don't die easily._

"T-that's true. But what did you really come here for? It's not everyday you want to see me. In fact, you don't want to see me at all."

Jaehyun smiles. "I just came to remind you to stop loving me."

Doyoung returns to him the same smile, the one where the corners of his lips don't even reach his ears, his eyes lifeless.

"If only I could, Jaehyun," he replies. _"If only I could."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the race for who's the most miserable character begins~
> 
> *The first piano piece Jaehyun was playing is Chopin's Etude Op. 10 No. 4. Here's le link if you're that invested in this story XD  
> https://m. youtube. com/watch?v=oHiU-u2ddJ4  
> *The song Jaehyun plays for Doyoung is Isabella's lullaby from the anime The Promised Neverland (hello there title inspiration)  
> Link: https://m. youtube. com/watch?v=zuimQ_Ufqtc
> 
> I DON'T OWN ANY OF THE SONGS
> 
> *So yeah. Cannibalism. Yikes. Don't eat children please. I swear to god this fic is getting darker.  
> *If you still don't understand Jaehyun, don't worry. Me too🤣 He was originally supposed to be the normal character in this fic. I wonder what happened?  
> *If there are any typos, I really appreciate if you point them out if you want to LMAO Someone did last time. And all I can say is not all heroes wear capes~
> 
> *HAPPY QUOTE from Kim Doyoung himself:
> 
> "You're so *agressive clapping* precious when you smile~"
> 
> We will be back to the present in the next chapter! Thank you for reading once again and I appreciate the support so much °v°


	8. So cry cry cry, I don't need you in my life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh lord what is this story turning into ⊙▽⊙

In the grip of silent panic, Taeyong pushes down the feeling of hyperventilating. His palms were sweaty and the adrenaline coursing through his system was shutting down his ability to think logically.

_Fuck. How much did he hear?_

Jaehyun's face was void of any emotion and it scared him how it was possible for someone to still hide behind indifference in this situation. 

Taeyong had two options, which were both completely insane even to him.

It was either him dragging Doyoung to another country where not even a single person would be able to recognize them, or they murder his best friend on the spot. 

Currently, the latter was looking the most ideal. Considering that Doyoung read thousands of books, it wouldn't be a surprise if he came across one about forensics and how to hide a dead body. And there's two of them. Taeyong could strangle Jaehyun to death while Doyoung restrains him. That way the blood would be on Taeyong's hands. 

_I need to keep him out of this mess. This is my mistake and I need to find a way to fix it._

If Kim Doyoung could sell his soul and body just to get his brother back, then Taeyong could also easily end Jaehyun's life in order for that goal to be achieved.

The problem here is that he actually _cared_ about the two of them. It would end up as a matter of who he cared about _more_.

As they all stood there frozen in place, Taeyong's mind still conjuring up excuses to deal with the shock, it was almost like everything suddenly fell into place.

_Wait._

_Why should_ _I care about them?_

It's almost like a natural instinct, a thought that terrified even himself.

Because in the first place, he didn't have two options. He has _three_.

"Yongie, I really can't believe you of all people would do this." Jaehyun smiles at him so innocently. It was the same dimpled smile he saw everyday. It was even the same grin he had on when they first met. But somehow, as Taeyong was looking at him right now, it felt...wrong.

Like the sides of his mouth were stitched into place.

Taeyong hopes Jaehyun doesn't notice him physically trembling because at this point he was only thinking about getting the fuck out of there and leaving Doyoung to deal with the aftermath of his betrayal.

It was _tempting_.

But instead he tries to calm himself. As much as he possibly can. This was Jung Jaehyun they were dealing with. If Taeyong barely even gets away with the usual half-truths then how much more if he just told blatant lies? 

Taeyong takes a deep breath before he speaks. God knows he needs it.

"Jaehyun-ah I can explain–" 

"Explain what?"

"W-what?" 

Jaehyun stares at him unblinkingly, as if Taeyong just asked him a completely ridiculous question. At this point, he was just...confused. 

_Did Jaehyun...not hear anything?_

"I went after you because you forgot your backpack in the practice room. You're usually so meticulous." Jaehyun lifts up said backpack in front of his face. It definitely has seen better days. Although, despite the age-thinned and frayed straps, what Taeyong notices is this:

That was not his backpack at all. It was _fucking ugly_.

But instead of denying his ownership of such an unfashionable, displeasing, atrocious, horrid– plainly hideous little thing, Taeyong gladly takes it from Jaehyun's hands.

"I guess I didn't realize I left it." Taeyong wills himself to smile. He hugs the backpack with one arm in some form of half a defense mechanism. The other part of him wanted to scream that he was strong, but he needed something to hold on to if his heart was bound to stop anytime. At this point the disgust almost overpowered his fear. 

But Jaehyun glances between him and Doyoung and the nausea is back again.

"Was I interrupting something?"

_There was it again. That smile._

"N-no. No. Doyoung and I were just...talking–"

"I suggest you stop talking before you could add to your pile of lies." Doyoung's voice stops Taeyong from going on a tangent of butchered explanations. To his astonishment, Doyoung steps up in front of him, his eyes no longer holding fear. 

It was only now that Taeyong notices the warmth and softness that clutched at his weary fingers. He didn't even realize they were shaking. 

_Did I unconsciously reach out for his hand?_

It was weird holding Kim Doyoung's hand. But Taeyong didn't find himself hating it.

Doyoung gazes at him with a look he couldn't understand. Nothing made sense anymore. But somehow, when Doyoung further tightened their entangled fingers, he felt... _safe._

"Jaehyun. I know you heard everything." Doyoung's confident voice pierces through the tension. " _Quit the act._ " 

There was a minute of unbearable silence when Jaehyun glanced in the direction of their intertwined hands. Taeyong could feel himself visibly gulping when the eyes landed on him. He felt like a child who stole money from his mother's wallet.

Because at that moment, Jaehyun's whole demeanor had changed. He was looking at Taeyong like he robbed a bank or something. _A thief_.

Every person has things they want to hide from others. It was only natural. But Jaehyun...Jaehyun was completely different. It felt like he had always hid everything and Taeyong never really knew him.

"You've been sleeping with other men without my permission?"

_That's what he's concerned about?_

Taeyong subconsciously glances at Doyoung only to see a flash of contained anger. 

"Why would I _need_ your permission?" Doyoung narrows his eyes in Jaehyun's direction. "You forbid me to want you but you don't like other people wanting me? Which is it?"

"You're the one who keeps telling me over and over again about your pathetic feelings. You're that _easy_? You'll get fucked by anyone just to feel validated, won't you? Do you know why Mark isn't coming back to you willingly?" 

_Wait. What?_

Jaehyun shoves Doyoung's shoulder. If it wasn't for their still interlocked hands then he would have surely fallen back with the force Jaehyun had used to push him.

Taeyong's limbs felt weak, his hold on the backpack loosening as it falls to the ground. But it doesn't catch any of their attention.

"Do you? It's because you're fucking insufferable."

"I'm _insufferable_?!" Doyoung screams back in the same heated intensity.

However, before the two could continue to pretend that Taeyong wasn't standing right there to hear every single word that came out of their mouths, he wretches his hand out of Doyoung's grip. This time, all eyes were on him.

"Excuse me but _what the fuck_ is going on?" Taeyong looks at Jaehyun in disbelief as he digs an accusing finger in his chest. "You...you knew about Mark? All this time?"

But it wasn't guilt that crossed Jaehyun's face. No. It was the complete opposite. And as he grips Taeyong's wrist, Jaehyun looks at him in a way he had never done before.

"That's not all I know." 

Jaehyun used to tell them they were equals. _Friends_. Taeyong should've realized sooner that the only person Jaehyun considered as his equal was no one, but himself.

"Quite daring of you to lie to my face by the way, even when I've already caught you in the act. I didn't expect any less but your audacity to even try was laughable."

"Wait– _what the fuck_? Wha– So all this time I was telling you lies and fearing for my life, you knew _everything_? And you pretended not to know?!" Taeyong tries to wrestle out of Jaehyun's grip on his wrist but it was of no use. 

"That's because you should know your place. Don't involve yourself further in the things you know nothing about."

"Know nothing about?!" Taeyong shrieks. He didn't know how he finally managed to free his hand from Jaehyun's hold. He figured it was either rage or the adrenaline. "Oh you fucking hypocrite." 

" _What_ was that?"

"How much do you really know? You were treating Doyoung like he didn't exist all this time while spouting shit about social hierarchy. How much were you hiding from us? Did I even really know you?"

Jaehyun sneers at him, the expression misplaced on his usual kind face.

"What about _you_ , Taeyong? How much of you was real? For what it's worth, I was aware of you _stabbing_ me in the back and plotting to break my legs with Mr. Honor Student over here. I knew you were a jealous fucking parasite."

_He knew about that too?_

It was truly ironic.

Taeyong was the one who betrayed Jaehyun, yet he felt like he was the one being deceived all this time.

"Well I'm glad those 3 years of friendship were worth it to you."

"Friendship?" Jaehyun laughed in his direction. " _Friendship_? We _used_ each other. You really thought that was friendship?"

From there on, Taeyong's emotions were free-falling. He seriously considered risking his life for this person once or twice in his life. Sometimes, Taeyong smiled genuinely whenever they were together, whenever Jaehyun told him he would be the best dancer and the world would know his name. And Taeyong _believed_ him.

It all felt so real. And maybe that's why it terrified Taeyong so much.

"You're... you're fucking despicable."

"I'm _despicable_? I'm no different than you. What changes things is that I'm smart enough to know where I stand. Now, if you swear to forget this ever fucking happened then maybe I would consider playing along with your bullshit on Monday morning and pretend we're still friends." 

_How was he able to do it so easily? Where was the Jung Jaehyun he knew?_

Taeyong just felt...defeated. What was the point anymore?

"You." Jaehyun glances to Doyoung as he grabs his wrist. "You're coming with me."

The sound of pain Doyoung let out as he was dragged forcefully brings Taeyong back to reality. His legs were finally moving before he knew.

"You're hurting him!" Taeyong wrenches Jaehyun's hand from Doyoung's wrist. He was certain the raw cuts caused more pain than Doyoung had always let on. 

As Doyoung looked at Taeyong with widened eyes, perhaps not expecting him to do such a thing when he was fully incapacitated by fear earlier.

Jaehyun shoves him with a force he had already long prepared himself for. "You don't have a say in this! I know him more than you'll ever know!"

"Then where were you all this time he was suffering?! When you knew he was starving himself because his student assistance was retracted, where the fuck were you?! He didn't steal your answer sheet– He wouldn't have–"

"Taeyong." A warm hand made it's way on his face, wiping away...tears? He didn't even realize he was crying.

"Calm down," Doyoung whispers.

But the next words that escape him only made Taeyong do the complete opposite. 

"It's fine. I knew he did it."

It was like a bomb that suddenly exploded in his face. Taeyong slowly glances in Jaehyun's direction. "He– He _what_?"

"You don't have to cry for me. I knew it was him–"

A resounding slap echoed in the open area. Jaehyun's head snapping sideways with the force of Taeyong's blow the moment his palm landed on the side of his cheek.

All he knew was that despite the throbbing numb in his palm, he felt better than ever.

"What the fuck. _What the fuck Jaehyun_... Did you– did you... frame Doyoung?"

Jaehyun flings his head back in place, a smirk creeping along with an angry red that Taeyong's open-handed smack left behind. The smug look served as an answer.

Doyoung looked more shocked than any of them. "Taeyong–"

Another slap.

Taeyong glares at Doyoung who staggered slightly backwards, clutching his face, eyes watering. "Why didn't you tell me? If you knew that, then why did you let him destroy you like that?!"

Doyoung wasn't able to look at him, and once again Taeyong sees everything click into place.

Jaehyun's obsession to score higher than Doyoung.

Doyoung letting Jaehyun get way with anything.

The two of them saying he should mind his own business and know his place.

All of it made sense now.

"You...You're fucking in love with him?" Taeyong looks at Doyoung once more, confirming his suspicions. Taeyong finds himself laughing. He lets out a noise of disbelief. "All this time...I'm seriously the third fucking party? Then... why did I care so much? Why did you let me care so much?!"

"You did that yourself!" Doyoung screams back, one step closer to a panic attack. "I told you so many times to leave me alone and look at what's happening. If you had just let me handle things on my own from the very start then we wouldn't be here. If you had just turned a blind eye then you would have lead a normal life and continued not knowing anything. You were the one who decided to get involved. Everything was fine before you cared. Tell me Taeyong. Why did you care so much?"

 _Why did he?_ In a beat, Taeyong answers him. 

"I don't know."

"You don't...you don't know?"

"I don't know." Taeyong could only let out a bitter laugh. "If I didn't find out on my own, then you two would've let me live my whole life not knowing anything."

"That's exactly what you should have done," Jaehyun adds.

"Well I _didn't_. So now what happens? Are you going to make my life miserable? Treat me like I don't exist if I talk? I have your lives on the palm of my hands here, I don't care if I'm going down. I'm taking both of you with me."

"And who exactly are you going to run your mouth to? My father? Who literally owns the fucking school we all go to?"

"No one's telling anyone anything," Doyoung utters with finality. Once again, Taeyong and Jaehyun find themselves drawn in his tone of confidence.

Doyoung glances at Jaehyun. "I'll be expelled for participating in underage prostitution, but you won't be able to accept the fact that you'll win by default. It will kill you to flaunt your fake accomplishments just to get your father's acknowledgement. You _need_ me to prove your worth."

He shifts his gaze to Taeyong. "You'll get suspended for violence and misbehaviour if Jaehyun even talks to his father about you slapping his face. Not only that but you've been working alongside me–"

"I did it to make you stop working!" Taeyong exclaims, completely scandalized.

Jaehyun glances at him with disgust. "Wait. You too?" 

Taeyong could only roll his eyes. "Why are you talking like you're so holy? It's not like you're a fucking _virgin_." 

When the silence plagued them, Taeyong lets out the most sinister laughter in realization. "Wait. Oh my fucking god. _You are!_ "

Jaehyun makes a move to strangle Taeyong but Doyoung smacks his hand away. "Stop it."

"Tsk."

Doyoung sighs in exasperation. "This is serious. We're all fucked if one of us even talk."

"What do you suggest we do then? Cut off each other's tongues? I obviously can't trust any of you anymore." 

"And do you think _I_ trust you?" Jaehyun snaps back. Taeyong ignores the fact that Jaehyun only addressed him. Whatever that meant, he had to think about in his alone time.

"We'll make a promise."

" _A promise?"_ Taeyong sneers in Doyoung's direction. Whatever silly little cat and mouse chase they were playing was long over. Right now, they were all fucked in different degrees. But that doesn't change the fact that they were all fucked anyway. 

Doyoung's face remains blank.

"That's it? I'm not holding onto any of your words. Especially now that I know the two of you are capable of throwing me under the bus the moment I walk away right now." 

"But all of us don't want any of this getting out. I just assumed the two of you would _willingly_ cooperate," Doyoung argues.

Jaehyun gives Taeyong a sharp look, one he returns with a greater ferocity. 

Somehow, it was a temporary truce. 

Taeyong lets out the breath he was holding all this time, the air finally escaping his lungs. The two of them both nod at each other, somehow communicating that they wouldn't go after each other's necks. For now. 

It was subtle, but Doyoung's face released the tension he was also holding on to. An expression of liberation.

But it wasn't over yet.

"We need reassurance," Doyoung says in all seriousness. "Things that will keep us all in line. If a single word even gets out, we're all dead. Here's how we'll do it. With every secret Taeyong lets out, we'll permanently break one of his legs–"

"But I'm a _dancer_! You can't possibly–"

"Exactly."

Taeyong's eyes widened at Doyoung's suggestion, fearing for his life once again.

"Now. If Jaehyun talks, we'll break his every single finger."

"Fair enough."

A sound of protest comes out from Taeyong. "How is that _fair_? I won't be able to walk and he gets off being fingerless?"

"He's a _pianist_ ," Doyoung answer as if it was painfully obvious. The sarcastic undertones weren't helping him getting back on Taeyong's good side. "If he wins the national competition this year, it would be possible for him to receive merits that would let his final grade score higher than mine."

They really do have different perceptions on what's worth losing a limb for. 

"Any more objections?"

A second passes and Taeyong knows it was all they needed to fully understand the gravity of their situation.

"None," Jaehyun answers for all of them.

"How about you then? What would we do if you talk?"

"That's easy."

Doyoung's stare wasn't intentionally cold, it's just that sometimes his face somehow lacked the mobility others had. His eyes would rest on a point, even a person, and he'd stay like that longer than the average person would.

It was like the elongated eye contact demanded a greater degree of physical separation.

As if he had already passed on but his body hadn't realized.

Doyoung looks at Taeyong like a damned soul in purgatory might look at Satan passing in regal splendour through the seventy times sevenfold circles of hell.

_"If I talk, kill Mark."_

And with that, the deal is sealed.

  
. . .

"Did you steal my son's answer sheet?"

"Of course- _ah-_ not. Why w-would I? It's obvious he got his mediocre intelligence from y-you."

Hajoon slips a hand on Doyoung's lower back, bending him over a little more, pulling his hips towards him to slam his cock further.

Doyoung whimpers at the sudden impact, leaving the man satisfied. "I- I told you to be careful of your words, didn't I?"

" _Ah-_ I'm- I'm s-sorry." Doyoung breathes heavily. He rasps, rough and intent, and Hajoon chuckles. He sweeps a hand down Doyoung's side, fingers trailing along the swell of his ass, spreading them further.

"Then...if it wasn't you..." Hajoon's pace was relentless, his strokes turning faster as he pumps in and out of Doyoung. 

"That's r-right. _Fuck- ngh-_ Your son put his own answer sheet inside my bag. D-disappointed, _ah-_ aren't you? That he would go to s-such lengths just to have your acknowledgement?"

Doyoung's mouth was wide and panting with drool dripping from the corner as he arched his back into the sensations. His pushes his forehead further into the sheets, sweat making his fringe cling to his face.

Hajoon's grabs his dick, stroking mercilessly, his thumb pressing into the slit before sliding around the head. 

Tiny erotic sounds leave Doyoung's lips in strangled gasps. He thinks its better this way, on his knees as he clings to the bed sheets for sanity. In that way, he wouldn't have to look at the man's face and pretend he loved every single second of this torture.

There's a low groan against his shoulder, and Doyoung resists the urge to shiver. "Hm. I'll make sure your final grades aren't affected."

"I- _ah-_ don't want your pity."

"Oh but you _need_ it."

Doyoung turns his head as much as he can to look at Hajoon. "Sharp as always."

All their movements stop altogether.

"You could say I learn a lot of things from you. Now, do you think your academic records would survive the most prestigious colleges in South Korea without my help?"

" _No, sir_ ," Doyoung answers bitterly and the smug look on Hajoon's face almost drove him to bite his tongue in order to stop himself from calling the man a sickening asshole.

"Then I'm basically waving an opportunity in front of your face. How far are you willing to go?"

"Hmm...I can suck your toes? I'm sure you would love that, the disgusting geezer that you are. Your fucking god complex better be satisfied because we won't be doing this as often anymore."

 _Because your son is one hell of a nuisance_. _And if he finds out I'm sleeping with his father, then we're both dead._

"That's not a bad idea. Can I suck your toes instead?"

 _"Seriously?"_ Doyoung laughs, low and throaty, and spreads his legs further. 

. . .

"Why do you two look like that?"

"No," Taeyong and Jaehyun answer at the same time, which just made it all the more suspicious.

Yuta chokes on his third banana, peeking at the both of them with childish suspicion. "Did you two turn into idiots overnight or?"

Taeyong gestures for him to stand up from his seat, index finger curling towards him. Hesitantly, Yuta walks to the other side of the table, leaning his ear close to Taeyong's mouth, waiting for a whisper. But what he gets is a crushing hand on his sides.

"Hey- hey- ow! You're crushing my spleen–"

"You don't even know where your spleen is," Taeyong says as he finally lets go, releasing Yuta from the pain of getting his ribs broken. Maybe he should've shoved his hands in Yuta's throat to rip out the vocal cords instead.

Yuta returns to his seat, with double the dissatisfaction. "I'm just saying- You two have been acting weird."

"In what way Yuta?" Jaehyun smiles and Taeyong could see how fucking transparent it was now. _How did I get fooled by that before?_

"That!" Yuta points at Taeyong. "That! See!"

Taeyong reminds himself to control his expressions and addresses Johnny instead who was busy smiling at his phone. "Can I punch him in the face?" 

"You can, but you really shouldn't," Johnny answers him, finally looking up.

"Are you _sure_ I can't punch him in the face?"

"Affirmative."

"Break his nose a little?"

"Taeyong, no."

"I was just worried!" Yuta exclaims. "You looked like someone died and I am very much concerned if you two schemed a murder without us. I'll be honored to hide the dead body. Johnny will pay for the coffin."

"I think it'll be your own body six feet underground if you don't stop talking," Jaehyun adds.

"Was I not informed or is today _Shit on Yuta Day_?"

"You weren't. That's everyday."

"Right. Aren't you all going to thank me for being a free punching bag?"

"Dōitashimashite," Taeyong replies.

"That means _you're welcome_ though."

"I said what I said."

Yuta sighs in defeat. "So you're both good? You don't have some kind of secret you're keeping from us that would risk your body parts or something like that?"

"No–"

"Not at all–"

"Absolutely not," Jaehyun and Taeyong say with conviction this time.

Yuta grins as he continues consuming his food on the table, the usual noise in the cafeteria surrounding them. 

"If you say so." 

At that moment, Kim Doyoung passes by, tripping on his own feet. Yuta misses the chance to see both Jaehyun and Taeyong so in sync, their heads turning in the same direction at the same time.

Yuta doesn't notice. No. But Johnny does.

  
. . .

"Oh you got the backpack I sent Hyuck," Mark calls out as soon as he sees the hideous thing sticking out on the trashcan. Weirdly, it looked like it belonged there.

Taeyong comes out of his room already dressed in comfortable clothing, drying his wet hair with a towel. "That was from you? What's inside it?"

Mark looks at him in disbelief and accusation. "Don't tell me you didn't even check it, hyung."

"No. It was ugly. I figured the inside was too."

"That's a horrible way of looking at life," Mark says with a condescending tone. This is exactly why he feels like the younger out of the two of them sometimes. 

Taeyong figures honesty is the way earn an intelligent person's trust, considering the aftermath of what happened when he lied to people like Jaehyun and Doyoung, who were both seeing through his lies anyway.

"Everytime you talk to me, it's like I'm talking to your brother again."

"They're clothes," Mark answers. 

Taeyong notices the immediate shift in topic but doesn't address it. 

"I figured you needed them since you always dance so much. You always complained about forgetting your extra shirts and drowning in your own sweat."

"Aren't you thoughtful? But if that was your taste in backpacks, then what more could I expect with clothes?"

"Meanie!"

Taeyong lets out a hearty laugh as he ruffles Mark's hair. "I'm just _kidding_. I'll take it out of the trashcan and actually use them, see?"

Just as the words come out of him, Taeyong moves to take out the backpack but holds the straps with only two clenched fingers, putting it away from his body as far as he could while extending his arm out.

Mark watches in astonishment. "You'll _actually_ wear them?"

"No. I'm turning them into rags–" Mark tackles him on the ground and presses his fingers to his sides. " _Stop-_ I was just teasing! I'll wear them I swear!"

"You better." The younger grins as he stands up, already on his way to his room. Taeyong's gaze follow him, knowing fully well that Mark wouldn't be able to come out for a certain period of time.

The timing pushes him to actually ask a question he had been meaning to from the very start. 

"Is Mom pressuring you again?"

Mark's back was turned on him, his hand already on the doorknob. 

"When is she not?"

When Mark turns his wrist to finally open the door, one foot stepping inside the room he either called heaven or hell, Taeyong's voice stops him on his tracks.

"Minhyung-ah," he calls out. "Do you love your brother?"

The reaction was immediate. Mark turns to face him, a child-like beam on his face. "Of course I do, hyung."

Taeyong shakes his head.

"No. I meant your real brother. Do you love _Doyoung_?"

He almost thinks that was the end of the conversation when Mark didn't answer him and slowly shut the door close. But to his surprise, the door opens slightly, just enough for Mark to have one eye peering out.

Taeyong thought he feared Mark not giving him an answer at all. But when the younger actually responded to his question, Taeyong immediately realizes that he was wrong.

Because the words that escaped Mark's lips was something he should've been more afraid of.

"My real brother? But Taeyong-hyung, you're my only brother."

The door slammed shut once again.

. . .

  
"The three of them fought today. You should've seen it. I thought I was watching a fucking _drama_ ," Donghyuck giggles as he throws himself on Mark's bed. "Also, it's getting tiring to be your boyfriend. You just make me monitor the three of them all day. Did you ask me to be your boyfriend because you love me, Mark? Or am I just a substitute for a fucking _camera_?"

Marks laughs along with him. "I'm just being cautious, Hyuck."

Donghyuck pulls Mark's body closer towards him, effectively giving him a death hug. "Then why didn't you think of that when you sneaked into a freshmen party? Hm?"

"That party sucked," Mark hums as he cuddles him back, a hand patting Donghyuck's head softly.

An offended noise resounds in the room. "I _hosted_ that party, asshole."

"I know."

The two of them looked at each other, grinned, then laughed again.

"You should've seen the look on Jaehyun- _sunbae_ 's face when I handed him that ridiculous backpack. Even he wouldn't believe the ratty thing belonged to Taeyong-sunbae. You have horrible taste, seriously Mark."

"But he went after him anyway?"

"The idiot went after him anyway," Donghyuck snickers playfully, his shoulders rising up and down. "I mean– he literally had to. Your brother sucks at making on-the-spot excuses. Even I knew your family doesn't own a dog. If I were Jaehyun- _sunbae_ I would've been suspicious too."

"So he found out?"

"Sure did. They had a whole deal and all that. Something about losing their limbs and killing you if Doyoung-sunbae talked."

Mark just lets out a noise of contentment, hugging Donghyuck closer to him. "Visit me again?"

"You know I can't, Mark. Your mother already doesn't approve of me being a bad influence to your studies and I have to charm your maid into letting me in every single fucking time. I might as well just _propose_ to her. She seemed ready to bare her ovaries right then and there."

"I'm sorry, Hyuckie. I promise I'll find a way to see you on my own after this week, alright?"

Mark feels Donghyuck shuffling in his hold to face him. "What's happening _this week_?"

"She's making me prepare for a big test again. I don't exactly know what it's for but...I'm forbidden to go out of my room for seven days."

Donghyuck rolls his eyes. "Wow your life's so boring. It's almost a talent."

"That's why you're here." 

Mark grins to see Donghyuck being satisfied with his answer.

"When will you forgive _him_?" Donghyuck asks, entangling their fingers together as a form of distraction.

But it was useless. Mark finds the question unwelcomed, even now. A contained anger filled him, just waiting to spill out. "They didn't hesitate to sell me like a pig and you're asking me that?"

"I don't know, Mark. It's just that...everytime I look at Doyoung- _sunbae_ , I can't help but see him more and more miserable. Like it's only him that carries all the world's burdens on his shoulders."

"Hm. He's good at that," Mark replies.

"Being miserable?

"Pretending to be."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't ask me how I've written THAT scene with a straight face. Because the answer is...
> 
> I didn't write that with a straight face ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) I don't think it's possible for anyone to write smut without cringing and laughing at the same time I CAN'T EVEN AAAAAH 
> 
> *Heyyyy it's markhyuckkkk  
> *Dōitashimashite - Japanese for "You're welcome"  
> *Sunbae - Korean honorific that people use to address their seniors  
> *"This is serious" obviously I can't take this seriously because all I remember is Mark saying it and laughing in Freaky Handshake XD
> 
> *HAPPY QUOTE: (I think 5 words are enough to make you laugh today)
> 
> Doyoung's Vroom Vroom Talk Show!!!🤣🤣🤣
> 
> But seriously you guys are so nice  
> ╥﹏╥ Thank you reading this and leaving comments as always!~


	9. Someone make me feel alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi :D
> 
> I wasn't able to update as regularly because of...well you can probably guess the reason by now. The world is in chaos and there was this looming anxiety that followed me. 
> 
> Just a quick reminder that Black Lives Matter. Sign the petitions, donate if you can, spread awareness and not misinformation. It's 2020. How do you antagonize someone just because their race is different?
> 
> But damn, those comments are engaging v(￣∇￣)
> 
> Enjoy the misery once again!

"My, what an awkward atmosphere."

Lee Jaehwa speaks from the other end of the table. Still, Doyoung pays it no mind, continuing to bore holes into his little brother's face who still refused to look at him.

That is until she clears her throat to make it fully clear that she wanted his attention. 

Dinner seemed simple enough it weren't for the fact that Doyoung was raised without the etiquette lessons required for the elite. He didn't think it mattered which spoon to choose, especially when he didn't have enough meals to eat in the first place.

After all, etiquette is the band-aid of a society with widespread empathy-deficit.

By only watching Mark, Doyoung had already deduced three unspoken rules: elbows off the table, sit up straight, and don't talk with your mouth full. The last one in particular, is evident when Mark doesn't glance at him even once, only stuffing his mouth with food as if he wanted a reason to not speak at all.

Mrs. Lee clears her throat once again and Doyoung hides his giddiness coming from the fact that she had to do it twice. Surely, she wasn't pleased.

A small victory.

Doyoung takes one look at her and he's reminded once again why his hatred for the woman had been subconsciously passed on to his son. Lee Taeyong looked so much like his mother that Doyoung had no choice but to despise him as much. He wanted to tear out both of their pretty faces. Slowly and agonizingly, so that they could feel even a part of his pain.

"You only see each other once a month but don't speak a word to each other." Jaehwa smiles, glancing at both Mark and Doyoung with obvious interest. "How peculiar you two are."

Mark remains unbothered, only focusing on finishing his meal. Doyoung watches him look up from his plate for the first time, a rising expectation within him.

To his disappointment, Mark looked at anything but him, dragging the chair as he stands up with indifference.

"I'll go to my room."

"You're done eating already?" Taeyong interjects, grabbing Mark's arm with a familiar confusion on his face.

"I have to study, _hyung_."

_Hyung. That's funny. I was the only one he called that._

Was Doyoung angry? No. He's bitter and that's worse. Angry is over fast, but bitter lasts. It grows like a tumour, pushing on the side of him that was serene, enveloping him in toxic darkness.

Doyoung wonders if Mark said the word on purpose. 

"But Doyoung's here for you. Can't you just–"

" _Taeyong_ ," Jaehwa warns, her voice cold and sharp. Doyoung doesn't miss Taeyong visibly flinching on his seat, like a scared animal. 

"Let him."

Reluctantly, Taeyong complies as he slowly lets his grip loosen from Mark's arm, a defeated expression etched on his face.

In an instant, Mark disappears to his room as if he wasn't sitting in front of the dinner table seconds ago, pretending Doyoung didn't exist.

Taeyong sighs in frustration, grabbing a rolled omelette in the plate directly in front of Doyoung. He first wonders if Taeyong hasn't lost his appetite despite the earlier scene that occured. But the moment they locked eyes, that's when he immediately understands Taeyong's intentions.

He can almost hear his eyes speak.

_Eat. The food isn't poisoned._

Doyoung resists the urge to laugh. The act was so childish that he wondered if Taeyong always thought of him to be so naive.

"Why aren't you eating?" Taeyong asks, gesturing to the food in front of them. Surprisingly the words didn't sound concerned, but threatening as soon as he switched to the verbal method.

If he kept going, Doyoung doesn't doubt Taeyong would have the will to feed an entire orphanage by the end of the day.

"You're here to have dinner, aren't you? _Eat_."

"No," Doyoung answers. "I'm here for my brother."

He sees Taeyong resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the sarcastic remark, choosing to meet his words with equally raging fire.

"Well you can't eat your brother."

"I don't intend to. I just want him back."

"You can't get him back if you die of starvation."

"Then give him back to me."

" _Eat the goddamn omelette, Doyoung_."

It was already a miracle they hadn't stabbed each other with the bread knives.

Doyoung can already feel Mrs. Lee staring at them, probably appalled at her son's sharp tongue and the suspicious casual exchange between the two of them.

"Taeyong-ah," she calls out. "Refrain from raising your voice. We have a guest, after all."

A quiet apology comes from her dutiful son, and Doyoung doesn't blame Taeyong to be so obedient and loyal. 

After all, the only one person he trusted his whole life was his mother. And she died when he was 15.

With no one else left, half of his trust belongs to Mark. The other half? _Himself_.

"I don't think my son's wrong, Doyoung. Go on." Mrs. Lee gestures to the food the same way Taeyong did. The similarities were starting to look uncanny. " _Eat_."

Why are they so obsessed with feeding people?

"I don't want to."

"And why not? Are you afraid?"

"I'm not afraid of you."

Mrs. Lee laughs, despite her earlier claim of not raising voices in front of a mere guest. 

"Of course you _aren't_. There are so many other things for you to be afraid of. For example..." Her fingers start counting each one. "...solitary. Loneliness. Oblivion. You can't even talk to your own brother. And you think he's still willing to go back to you after everything?"

"Just keep your end of the deal."

"Oh I will. You know I don't break promises."

Doyoung doubts that. The woman was probably already thinking of plans on how to be a hundred steps ahead of him.

"Tell me, Doyoung. Do you like surprises?"

Surprises were never a good thing.

Doyoung just wants her to taste just a little of the same poison she was so happy for him to swallow daily. Maybe it'll educate her. Or maybe she'll learn nothing, but maybe, just maybe, some of his bitterness will ebb.

" _Not at all,_ " he replies honestly.

"Better prepare yourself then. Because you won't see this coming."

She smiles.

Lee Jaehwa would have the face of an angel if ever her lips would ever break farther apart. However, to Doyoung, she was nothing but an ugly irony.

. . .

  
A week later, a shattering sound silences the whole cafeteria. The students pause their mundane chatter to look at the chaos.

Between it all is Kim Doyoung, along with the broken pieces of glass beside his feet. Judging by the minimum amount of orange juice free-flowing on the floor, Jaehyun suspects half of its contents were drank before it was slammed on the floor by Choi Jinyoung himself.

Jaehyun resists the urge to look at Jinyoung, who was sneering as he points to the mess he had caused himself. He had already warned him beforehand to not tell people they were even blood-related. That was why multiple warnings needed to be repeated. Without them, Jinyoung would have already set his mouth running.

Taeyong looks at Jaehyun with the expectation of him doing something, to which he thinks is idiotic. All the students' eyes were already drawn to the situation. It would be worse if they inserted themselves.

"Where the _fuck_ did you get this from? The people who stored Satan's piss and labelled it orange juice?"

Doyoung was in that position again. The one where he fiddled with his fingers with the hands he placed on his back. As if he was being interrogated. 

"But you drank most of it–"

"I don't want to hear your fucking excuses! You think you can get away from this?!" Jinyoung growls resounded as if he was a wild animal. Certainly, this would be the talk of the student body for a whole week.

_You really aren't making things easier for me, Doyoung._

Jaehyun continues shoving his meal down his throat despite the weird aftertaste, keeping a calm demeanor.

"I'll you one last chance. Do you want my forgiveness? Huh?" Jaehyun hears what sounded like Jinyoung's fist being slammed on the table. "Doyoung? Do you?"

"Y-yes."

"Then _lick_ it."

_Goddamit. That son of a bitch._

"What?"

"Lick all of it clean. I don't care if your tongue gets cut by glass in the process. I want the floor to be _spotless_."

Jaehyun feels movement beside him. Instantly, he knew who it was without even looking. He grabs Taeyong's arm with a firm grip.

"Don't you dare move from that seat. You're only going to make things worse for him."

Taeyong's face reflected his rage. If only he was capable of showing the same.

He imagines Jinyoung dangling from a high-rise tower, the only thing between him and certain death is Jaehyun's outstretched hand. But the further Jaehyun dwells on it, the more he sees Jinyoung falling below the ground with broken bones.

Johnny and Yuta were staring at them weirdly now. 

Taeyong pulls his arm back as he seethed. "Things are bad enough as it is. I don't give a _shit_ about your social hierarchy anymore. He needs my help."

"No, he doesn't. _Taeyong–"_

"Uhh...where are you going?" Yuta's eyes widened with worry. 

It was too late. 

Taeyong was already striding halfway across the room, as mad as Schrodinger's cat stuck in it's box. A migraine was making its way through Jaehyun's head. Pounding endlessly.

Maybe that was why he also stood up and followed Taeyong's madness, Yuta's noise of bewilderment and Johnny's curious gaze completely ignored.

The next thing they know, Jinyoung was slammed to the wall with Taeyong's hand gripping his neck like a feral beast. A collective gasp filled the room.

Taeyong's eyes glinted with malice as he stared Jinyoung down, the other struggling in his hold.

"Hey. What the fuck do you think you're doing? I'll skewer you like a fucking pig."

" _Ooooooh_ ," Yuta called from a few feet away, supportive as ever. The students mimic his sound of amazement.

"Lee Taeyong. To w-whom do I owe the p-pleasure of your attention?"

"You owe youself. I could hear you being an egotistical bastard from far away."

"W-well it's not like it's a-any of your business, is it?"

"Not my business?" Taeyong drives his nails deeper into Jinyoung's neck as he lets out an incredulous laugh. " _Not my business?_ Fuck. You think you're so funny, don't you? I'm _sick_ of people telling me that."

_Oh this wouldn't end well._

Jaehyun sighs.

Immediately sensing the danger, both Johnny and Yuta make their way among the sea of students who had their phones out to capture everything on camera. Johnny finds himself accidentally colliding with the students, making their holds loosen on the devices for him to step on some along his way. Yuta, on the other hand, was already planning on how to make the entire school body download a virus that would corrupt the data on their phones.

"Johnny, hold him back," Jaehyun says as he holds a hand out to Doyoung who was on his knees. He stared at Jaehyun with an unreadable expression, perhaps fearing the consequences their actions would entail.

Jaehyun doesn't blame him. It would take a while for all of this to quiet down.

Doyoung doesn't take his hand, standing up by himself. Jaehyun hates him.

"Let go of me!" Taeyong struggles in Johnny's hold. "Let go! All I need is to bury a fucking pencil in his throat and he won't be spouting bullshit anymore!"

"Yongie, calm down. Are you on your period again?" 

"Shut the fuck up Yuta! You're next!"

" _Oh Buddha_."

Jaehyun smiles at Jinyoung who looked at him with repulse. One word was all he needed.

" _Leave_."

The quiet plagued the whole room, as if they were unwilling to make noise without his permission.

"Oh? What's this? The four of you didn't give a fuck about anyone else in this school but yourselves all this time, much less someone like Kim Doyoung. How is he different?"

It seems that the dog had forgotten his owner. Jaehyun keeps in mind to put him back in his place later on. He refused to be bitten by someone with such dull teeth.

"Don't get on my nerves. I said, _leave_."

"Or else what? You're going to slam my head on this wall too and tell me how much of a fucking idiot I am? I know exactly what's going on, Jaehyun. In fact, I know _more_ than you know. And I bet my life it's going to ruin you."

_Ruin me? Oh Jinyoung._

He was pitiful. He either had nerves of steel or knowledge that assured his triumph.

Jaehyun knew Jinyoung had neither. He was a coward, and he always will be. The only thing that kept him going all this time was that he knew about Mark. He was useful in keeping Doyoung in line for a while.

But now the man was starting a revolution, and Taeyong was abandoning the social order.

He needed to get rid of the former. If he didn't, Taeyong would run rampant to protect Doyoung, ruining everything like a falling house of cards.

"Are you asking for a concussion?" Jaehyun grins at him.

An angry glare meets his mockery, Jinyoung already making his exit. All of them stare at his retreating form. With his back turned, he truly looked like a coward.

"This isn't over," Jinyoung told him.

_Oh cousin. It hasn't even started._

. . .

As soon as it was over, Jaehyun drags Taeyong to an empty classroom after telling both Johnny and Yuta some random believable excuse up his sleeve.

"What was _that_?" he seethes, the rage now fully transparent.

Taeyong feigns obliviousness, instead, looking at anything but Jaehyun as takes the seat on one of the stools.

"What do you mean?" 

" _What I mean_ was you rushing to Doyoung's rescue like you were suddenly hired as his knight in shining armour."

"Did you expect me to just sit there and pretend like nothing's happening? He could've been eating glass on the floor and you would've left him to bleed."

"Why not? That's what you've done all along. Are you saying you can't do it anymore?"

A fire within Taeyong was rekindled at Jaehyun's words, his hands unconsciously forming into clenched fists. He hoped no one would get on his nerves enough to be killed today, but his once best friend was so good at crossing that line too easily.

"You don't get to turn this on me!" Taeyong rises on his feet. "I pretended not to see him before. That's exactly why I'm looking at him now. Because you know what, Jaehyun? I'm a decent human being and I learn from my mistakes."

"Do you want me to break your legs right now and learn from your mistakes then?!" Jaehyun narrows his eyes with disbelief, the threat very much serious.

But Taeyong was long too tired cowering in fear. _Fuck not giving a fuck._ He scoffs.

"Why? As far as I know, nobody knows anything."

"Nobody knows anything _yet_. Are you waiting for the moment this all fucks us over?! Is it a game of testing the waters, seeing how far you can go?! You think you can run that mouth of yours whenever you want? Yuta and Johnny heard your little speech earlier. They're already suspicious as it is. How do you plan on smoothing this over?"

" _Calm down_ ," Taeyong says with gritted teeth. "Yuta's an idiot and Johnny's too unbothered. They're clueless. But you also did the same thing. You seem to care more than you think."

"I did it to _stop_ you."

"Sure. But he doesn't belong to you."

"What?"

"Doyoung," Taeyong answers. "He doesn't belong to you."

"And who do you think he belongs to? _You_?"

"Himself. You think he's an object. A property. That's exactly why you can't have him. You never will. Unless you look at him as a person."

Taeyong's emotions swirl like ocean currents, deep and strong. Sometimes he's scared to dive in in the case of not make it out again, but he can't be anyone else. And he doesn't think anybody else can.

Jaehyun wasn't listening. But Taeyong wishes he was only pretending not to be. He strides towards the door in a motion of leaving.

But before he could, he tells Jaehyun one last thing.

"I don't think you've realized it yet."

"Realize what?"

"That you keep telling Doyoung to not need you but it's you who actually needs him the most."

. . .

Boring. It was so fucking boring.

Lee Donghyuck thinks a murderer stabbing him with a knife at this point wouldn't even kill him. It also certainly wouldn't even be type 2 diabetes despite the unhealthy amount of sugar he consumed as if he needed it to breathe. And lastly, it wouldn't be his mother nagging at him either.

It was _boredom_. 

He glances at the clock for the hundredth time that day. It's not even two yet. 

His teacher was talking about triangles or something like that. He called it something way more fancy and complicated. Was it the _Pythagorean theorem_? Mark could probably teach him better than the old man. He talked like it was a funeral and not an algebra lesson.

And from the resounding snores from his fellow classmates at the back of the classroom, they probably felt the same way.

Was is that hard to teach or did the man hate his job with a passion? Even depressed college students would sound more enthusiastic than him. Donghyuck thinks if the man was compared to a white crayon, the crayon would prove to be more useful.

_What was Principal Jung thinking?_

If the system could push maths and science at the expense of the arts and sports, it is akin to shooting athletes in the feet and expecting them to win.

Donghyuck began to drift into an unpleasant daydream. Or was it a paranoid fantasy? It was hard to tell and he didn't care. It helped to pass the time and he wasn't one for entertaining himself with optimism. Better to be prepared.

He was five minutes in too deep with his imagination when the rough voice calls out his name.

"Donghyuck?"

" _Haechan_ ," he corrects him.

"Donghyuck."

"Haechan."

The man sighs, the veins on his temples now visible. "Can you please stop chewing your gum so loudly? You're already privileged enough to even eat food in class as it is."

"Haechan," he answers just to spite him.

"You're seriously getting on my nerves kid."

"Haechan."

"For the last time, that's not your name."

"Haechan."

"Alright, _Haechan_." The man narrows his eyes at him, as if Donghyuck was a painful thorn on his side. "Get out of my class."

Donghyuck grins sadistically. "With pleasure, _seonsaengnim_."

He salutes to his classmates in goodbye who immediately let out a chorus of complaints. 

Donghyuck scoffs as he walks under the banner beneath the projector screen. It was a hideous font. Plain. Boring.

_**The child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child.** _

These educational institutions are all the same. Another day of tedium rammed down their throats with the keen sting of stress - always the tests, always the reporting, always the reminders of the consequences of failure.

The teacher's squinting gaze followed him on his way to get out of the class, almost wretching the door enough to unhinge it from the wall. 

_Why isn't this door opening?_

To his surprise, as he pulled the door open, along with it is a person crash landing on his body whose hand was actually grabbing the knob on the other side.

They both fall to the floor and Donghyuck whines in pain.

" _Hey! Watch where you're–"_ He blinks his eyes and sees a familiar face. "What are you doing here?"

"Hi."

The surprise registers on Donghyuck's face before he could hide it. A small smile plays on the boy's lips, and Donghyuck challenges it with a knowing smirk. 

His teacher's voice comes from the front of the room. "Ah. I see you've met your new classmate."

" _Classmate?"_ Donghyuck asks as the boy helps him to stand up from the floor, an amused glint in his eyes. The boy merely gives him a mere shrug. 

"He's the new transfer student. Everyone, I want you to meet–"

"Mark _fucking_ Lee."

The man nods in agreement, fully oblivious to the remark. Along with his realization is the fuming anger. "Yes. Yes. Mark fucking– Lee Donghyuck!" 

" _Haechan_ ," Mark corrects the man with a giggle.

. . .

"Damn. I left my change of clothes in the classroom." Johnny sighs in disappointment as he rummages his backpack. 

They had just finished the first set of dance practice, the room now devoid of the usual squeaking noises from the friction between their sneakers and the floor.

Taeyong finishes drinking a whole bottle of water, flinging a towel on his neck. "Do you want me to go with you?"

"I'm not a kid," came Johnny's answer as he exits the practice room. It held no malice. It was just the way Johnny was. And with that understanding, Taeyong merely smiles.

"Ah you were rejected Yongie," Yuta teases as he slides down to sit beside him on the floor.

"At least I don't suffer from one-sided infatuation for the whole school year. You've already stared too much at Sicheng the past 30 minutes. It's getting creepy."

"There's never too much staring at Sicheng."

"You're a smitten fool."

"Hm."

Jaehyun sits beside Yuta unceremoniously. "Staring at Sicheng again?"

Yuta nods in answer, admiring how Sicheng dances so captivativingly with deliberate movements, yet still retaining fluidity. 

Ten danced beside the man of his dreams, but Yuta didn't care about that. And he also wasn't petty that he didn't get to be Sicheng's dance partner despite Ten only almost finishing his rehab. The twisted ankle took longer to heal than they had expected.

Yuta thinks it would be a shame if the same thing happened to Taeyong. Dancing was his dream, after all. It would destroy him.

"You're so whipped."

"But is it wrong to be?" Yuta sighs dramatically.

"Alright there, _Romeo_."

"You two just need a little loving in your life. You hate people, you hate yourselves, you hate everything."

Jaehyun chuckles. It was the giggles that were the sails upon their boat, the laughter, the smiles. "Is love that great, Yuta?"

"Well. Actually, it's not," he answers. "In fact it's painful."

"Then why do you love?"

"Because it's painful."

Yuta's blunt words arises innocent laughter coming from both of his sides. He feels the two vibrating against his shoulders.

" _What?"_ Taeyong asks, peering at him with a grin as he tilts his head to rest on the arms on top of his knees. Jaehyun does the same.

"Well..." Yuta glances at the both of them.

"When it's painful, that's when you know it's _real_. You can be hurt even from the little things they do, but you try to understand them. People say to give, and not expect to receive. I find truth in those words. To me, friendship is love and love can't be a transaction, a trade. It can expand as air can, fill any void no matter the amount. I guess the challenge is learning how to give so much with so little returned and still never expect any help or kindness. Like...the two of you. You hurt me sometimes, even if you don't intend to. But I still love you all the same, don't I?"

"Love, huh?" Jaehyun says, his face hidden in his crossed arms. Yuta believes he did it on purpose.

There are times that Jaehyun thinks the emotions in Yuta are so high, he could almost feel them leap from him right into his own eyes. It's like his emotions are sparks ready to fly and his friends are his only ground. It's as if the usual scales of human emotion just don't apply to him. 

It can't be easy to be in that mind, to _live_ in it, _feel_ it. 

There's one thing they all can't do. And that's belittling what Yuta feels.

"Yeah..." Yuta smiles as he trailed on. "I'm not as oblivious as you think I am. I notice things, you know? But I think...the things you aren't telling me are the ones you're keeping for a reason. I won't ask you to tell me. Just know that I'll be there to listen and that– _you know_. I'll be here for you guys. Whenever you need me, as much as I can do. I want you to know that I...You- you're both smarter than me. I know that. You know what you're doing most of the time and how to solve the world's problems. But there are times that, maybe you might just need a _fool_ for a friend. And when that time comes, I hope you remember that _I'm here._ "

A comfortable silence washes over them, Yuta fiddling with the strings of his hoodie as he looked at the floor.

"That was sappy." Taeyong finds himself unable to look at Yuta, rotating his whole body to face the other side. 

"Shut up. Ignore me. I'm going to stare at Sicheng," Yuta tells them, noticeably red in the face. He was clearly more flustered than the two of them.

Jaehyun stands up in haste, heading to the door. 

"I'll go check on Johnny!" he called out to escape the embarrassment.

He didn't understand. Why did it feel like someone was holding his heart and crushing it?

Yuta will be there for them, he said. Jaehyun wonders, if that day really comes...will he also be there for Yuta?

. . .

The first thing that greets Johnny when he steps inside the classroom is a metallic stench.

Crimson blood splatered the walls and the floor.

The warm glow of the sunlight was supposed to be mesmerizing, a treasure in a normally gray bleak world. Johnny used to even move his bed near the window just so he would be able to see the sun setting and rising. But the last rays of the late afternoon sun fell slanting through the classroom window, contrasting the cold body that laid like a ghoulish mannequin.

It was propped, ungainly as a rag doll, against the far wall. A familiar mop of head had drooped forward, and over his chest dripped the blood coming from his bent neck.

Johnny saw the severed vessels, sticking like corrugated pipes through the clotted blood in the multiple holes on the side of the student's neck. What looked to be a _pencil_ was still innocently lodged from one side of his flesh to the other, the graphite end covered in a thin layer of angry red.

Before Choi Jinyoung's corpse stood Kim Doyoung, a sick sense of glee evident in his eyes along with a terrifying grin.

Johnny's heart started pounding with fear, the adrenaline rushing within him.

He slowly steps back. But it was a mistake.

The floorboards creaked with his movement. Along with it is Doyoung's head snapping to his direction, his prior expression overidden with widened eyes and dilated pupils. Doyoung's adulterated joy was now replaced by fear.

"You probably won't believe me." 

Johnny prepares himself to run where his feet would take him.

_A murderer. Kim Doyoung was a murderer._

If he didn't make it out of there now, he could also be skewered in the neck with a pencil. Doyoung had to have an insane physical amount of strength to do something so gruesome. 

But suddenly it was as if his legs had lost all the strength in them. Johnny collapses to the floor.

_This is it. He'll kill me too. I'm going to die._

His mouth was dry like sandpaper, his throat unable to let out even an agonizing cry for help.

Johnny's heart almost stops beating.

But Doyoung turns his whole body slowly, hands raising in mock surrender. His eyes held sincerity that Johnny had never seen before with that much intensity in anyone all his life. 

_"I didn't do it."_

Johnny's grandmother always told him honesty was not of diminutive favor, rather something given towards you with great expense. Sometimes broken, sometimes built strong. 

She told him people speak of lies as if they know truth, and speak of truth as if they haven't told a single lie.

Yet his grandmother never told him who to believe.

The more he looked at Doyoung's eyes, the more Johnny was convinced he wasn't a murderer. But the fear stayed close to him, a looming reminder that he also had a neck anyone was capable of drilling with a mere pencil.

That was how humans were so fragile. 

As the two of them stared at each other, paralyzed and unintentionally basking in the sickening smell of dried blood, the presence of another person's steady footsteps drawing closer to the classroom was left unheard.

Jaehyun stood equally terrified in the doorway. But he didn't scream. In fact, only three words make it out of him as he sees the bloodied morbidity of it all.

_"What the fuck."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an advance HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR FULL SUN, LEE DONGHYUCK eyyyy
> 
> Oh and yeah. Jinyoung died LMAO I wanted to kill him from the very start. This chapter was seriously so chaotic, it makes everyone sad and angry🤣
> 
> I hope my writing wasn't rusty ≖‿≖ 
> 
> *Therefore, I leave you this question: Who killed Jinyoung? Or could it perhaps be...suicide? ⊙▽⊙ What is happening in this story?
> 
> *Happy Quote:
> 
> Don't be as useless as the G in Lasagna. Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead~
> 
> AS ALWAYS, STAY SAFE EVERYONE


	10. Step on the glass, staple your tongue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your theories amaze me  
> (╯°▽°)╯ ┻━┻
> 
> This chapter has been sitting in my drafts for a month now but I've been too occupied with other things to actually update.
> 
> This chapter is... heavy. That's another word for long. And quite disturbing😂 But I kept you guys waiting for too long so go on. Read it~

" _Hey hey._ Have you heard? A third year student has gone missing."

On Monday morning, every corner was littered with hushed whispers and murmurs from the student body. Though, no matter how low their voices were, that didn't stop everyone from overhearing anyway.

More students gather within the circle as if they were performing a demonic ritual. However, instead of summoning an incubus, they were ready to risk it all for mere information. All of them had the same question. "Who?"

"A delinquent named Choi Jinyoung."

The whispers augment.

"A delinquent?"

Huang Renjun nods in confirmation. "His main target was our school's honor student."

"Jaehyun- _sunbae_?"

"Jeno are you trying to be funny or have you lost all your functioning braincells? Does Jaehyun- _sunbae_ look like a pushover?"

"Is it Taeyong- _sunbae_ then?"

Cue a smack to the head delivered by Zhong Chenle himself. "Are you shitting under a fucking rock, Jisung?" Park Jisung clutches his head as he groans in pain. "Have you heard Lee Taeyong speak? Even his words are enough to set your entire kitchen on fire."

"Johnny- _sunbae_?" Jeno tries again, leaning forward.

"That's not possible," Renjun answers along with shaking his head. "He probably looks at a tree branch like it's a twig."

"WHAT ABOUT YUTA- _SUNBAE_?!" Na Jaemin hollers from the end of the hallway, his voice cracking at the end from straining his vocal cords. How he was able to hear the conversation, nobody knows.

The students' heads snap to him in sync. Renjun pinches the bridge of his nose as sighs deeply. " _NO_ , JAEMIN!" he screams back. "He probably knows where to bury a dead body or something!"

Another head peers out in the close-knitted crowd, pushing the other students aside to walk towards the center of the circle right where Renjun was. The noise of complaints were ignored as soon as they saw who it was. 

_"Haechan!"_

Donghyuck smirks. “Who else is left?”

"Took you long enough." Renjun rolls his eyes, acknowledging his arrival.

"My bad. I was _occupied_ ," Donghyuck grins, pulling alongside him a clueless Mark. He didn't look bothered despite the lewd implications of what Donghyuck's words entailed. "So what were you _peasants_ talking about?"

"Choi Jinyoung is missing."

"Ah," Donghyuck lets out, refusing the urge to analyze Mark's expression beside him. "That cumrag who slaved other first years to do his school work?"

"Well there was one student who wasn't exactly a first year. An _exception_ as always." 

"Oh? Who?"

"Why it's none other than our school's best student, seemingly anthropophobic, second to none, and only scholarship passer – _Kim Doyoung._ "

"Not anymore," Mark interjects. 

The heads shift to look at him, a few wondering who he is, some amused at his interruption, and most of them curious at the meaning behind his words.

"Haechan, _who_ is this?" Renjun gestures at Mark, exasperation dripping with his tone.

Donghyuck lets out a boisterous laughter, aware that he's testing Renjun's patience. "Why, it's none other than _Mark Lee_. Taeyong- _sunbaenim's_ younger brother and our school's _second_ scholarship passer. Well, he did take that impossible exam on a whim but he's not riding on the scholarship since he's clearly financially stable." 

After a beat, he adds, "He's also my _boyfriend_ so if I catch one of you snakes laying even a single finger on him, I will cut it off along with your heads.”

The whispers break out once more.

Mark looks at him, incredulous at the over the top introduction. But that's exactly what he expected from Lee Donghyuck. Not once has Donghyuck not exceeded everyone's expectations.

"I believe the greetings are long overdue then," Renjun smiles wickedly at him, his snaggletooth looking more like the sharp canines of a ferocious beast. 

"Welcome to hell, _Mark Lee_."

  
. . .

_"Taeyong!"_

_The door of the dance practice room slams open, metal connecting with the wall in a resounding thud. The club members wince at the sudden sound._

_Jaehyun appeared before them, catching his breath. He was a mess. It was obvious he ran here._

_At that moment, Taeyong could see all on the underlying emotions on his face. Anger, confusion, disbelief - so intertwined that perhaps they aught to be tweaked in order for other people to notice at all._

_He had a bad feeling about this._

_"Taeyong..." Jaehyun says once again, more composed as he noticed he was gathering the unnecessary attention of all the dance students inside the room. "I need you to come with me."_

_From his tone, Taeyong immediately understood the gravity of the situation. The question was how serious was it get Jaehyun so worked up._

_Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one who noticed._

_As Taeyong starts walking, he also feels Yuta stir beside him._

_"Yuta," Jaehyun calls out. It almost sounded like a warning. How ingenious... yet terrifying._

_"Teach the other members the rest of the routine and finish the choreography by the end today."_

_"Are you expecting our toenails to fall off as well?" Ten whines from the corner of the room, his sarcasm thoroughly delivered. "The competition is 3 fucking months away."_

_Nobody dared to move. The air around the room was so brittle it could snap, and if it doesn't, Taeyong might._

_No one speaks, but what is there for him to say? Platitudes won't cut it right now._

_Taeyong glances at Yuta who remains in the same dilemma as him, casually alert and observant._

_Back then, he had always thought Jaehyun was the easiest to read among the four of them. Jaehyun had overly simplistic reactions – he giggles whenever he finds people amusing, frowns when he disagrees with the teachers' explanations, sighs whenever he's had a tiring day. At least that's what Taeyong had thought._

_Johnny was aloof. His colors are as muted as those around him, allowing him to hide in plain sight. There's not a long list of things he wants, but he's content. In the end, Jaehyun always sees through him the best._

_Yuta, on the other hand, was so obnoxiously layered that it makes him the hardest to see through._

_"Oh?"_

_Jaehyun leans at the doorway and tilts his head in innocent mockery. "And here I thought you would prove yourself useful to the team after a break. If you refuse to dance then you're actually better off staying in that hospital room with your ankles broken, aren’t you?”_

_A loud squeak resounds in the room, Ten's shoes gliding on the floor, headed to Jaehyun's direction. "You-"_

_The tension resurfaced. They all watched in anticipation as Ten raised his hand._

_Before anyone could make move, Jaehyun grins playfully, dimples making another grand entrance. It was something so uncalculated that even Ten just froze on the spot from being caught off guard._

_"Prove yourself," Jaehyun declares, misplaced smugness obvious in his voice. "Prove to everyone in this room that an injury won't stop you to be more than good enough. Or is that too hard for the dancing ace Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul?"_

_And just like that, they all watch as Jung Jaehyun's magic works again._

_Ten sighs in defeat. "You and your fucking- Your flattery won't get you anywhere, Jaehyun."_

_Jaehyun shrugs, the grin still plastered on his face. What's ironic is how he's actually standing there with confidence._

_"Taeyong," Ten says as slowly walks back to the center of the room. "Go run our majesty's errands while I show these amateurs flapping like chickens how to fly."_

_Taeyong rolls his eyes as he quickly joins Jaehyun by his side. The last thing Jaehyun tells them is "Don't wait for us." There was most likely an underlying message in there for Yuta, but Taeyong dismisses the thought._

_The resounding sound of the door slamming close once again signaled the others to start practicing._

_Yuta stares at the remnants of Taeyong and Jaehyun's presence at the doorway with an unreadable expression._

_He stared until his eyes burned enough for him to look away._

. . .

_"Oh my god. Holy fuck- What the- You actually killed him?!"_

_" **You** killed him!" Jaehyun accuses. _

_Taeyong rises to the balls of his feet, a permanent frown plastered on his face. "What the fuck are you talking about?!"_

_"Can't you see that fucking pencil lodged in his throat or does Choi Jinyoung need to come back alive and curse at you for butchering his esophagus?"_

_"I didn't kill him!" Taeyong shrieks._

_It amazes Doyoung how they were more concerned about blaming each other rather than Choi Jinyoung's limp body on the floor._

_Death wasn't kind. Doyoung knew that. It snatched where it could, taking people who were far too young, far too good. It didn't pretend to care, it didn't pretend to distinguish._

_The hooded vale of death had hung over the world for a long time, always threatening. It had always been hovering close to Doyoung, leaving him more unperturbed than the person beside him._

_Seo Johnny, wasn't it?_

_The two of them were tasked to drag Choi Jinyoung's corpse to the Student Council room by Jaehyun. Jinyoung's blood dripped on the classroom's tiled floor, so before they could even make it out the door, Johnny flung Jinyoung's body over his shoulder almost insistently. He did it with so much ease that Doyoung almost let out a noise of amazement._

_Fortunately for them, the only students that stayed at this time of day were those practicing in the next building that specifically accommodated all the club rooms._

_Hajoon was useful for once. That bastard._

_Still, they remained overly cautious as Doyoung looked over the hallways to see if a student or teacher just happened to catch them hoarding a whole student's dead body._

_They made it safely. Almost uneventfully. It makes Doyoung wonder how much trust Jaehyun actually had for Johnny to accomplish the task given to him._

_"You didn't do it, right?" Jaehyun asked him._

_" **No** ," Doyoung answered. From the way Jaehyun looked at him, Doyoung had no doubt that no matter the amount of blood was left in that classroom, it would all disappear as if a_ _murder never occured in the first place_

_Johnny was watching it all unfold in front of him. Yet, he remained quiet as they wait for Jaehyun and Taeyong to arrive._

_Doyoung looked at Jinyoung's unmoving form. If it wasn't for the crimson on his clothes, or the pencil still lodged in his throat, he would've thought Jinyoung was just sleeping._

_The realization fully sinked in him. Choi Jinyoung... was actually dead._

_"You... you don't look scared."_

_Doyoung glanced at the voice's owner. Johnny was a few feet away from him._ _Does this make them more than just strangers who happened to be in the same school now?_

_He watched as Johnny let out a slow controlled breath and attempted to loosen his body movements, walking around the room like a clockwork soldier._

_That was no way to be in a place like **this**._  
  
_Johnny gave his shoulders a wiggle and lolled his head in a circle, let his stride slacken to a more casual pace. It was a decent effort, enough to fool the casual observer, but for the onlooker with a keen eye, he was a walking advert for tension. His eyes moved with the alertness that came from heavy stress and his hands remained clenched by subconscious demand._

_"That's because I'm not," Doyoung answers calmly._

_Johnny stops pacing. "Why?"_

_Restless. Johnny was... restless. He looked at Doyoung as if he was looking at an apathetic psychopath._

_"I didn't kill him."_

_"I thought you and Jaehyun didn't know each other. You seemed close."_

_Doyoung notices the shift in the conversation. He pretends not to notice. "Did we?"_

_"Yeah."_

_"Johnny-ssi. You're really bad at conversations."_

_"So are you, Doyoung-ssi."_

_Doyoung sighs. "He made my life even more unbearable." He glances at Jinyoung. "All this time I resented him. Did I_ _wish for him to die? Maybe I did. I honestly lost count already. But_ _now that he actually is... It might be crazy to say that it's exactly how I feel. I'm glad? Relieved, even. If a person who made you miserable suddenly died..." Doyoung looks at Johnny in the eye for the first time. "wouldn't you be happy, too?"_

_Johnny was the first to look away, instead looking at the upper right of his dress shirt stained by Jinyoung's blood when he carried him over his shoulder._

_"I would," he lied._

_And just like that the conversation ended._

_The four of them wait, the silence engulfing the room. Doyoung counts every second in his head, passing like eternity. He doesn't miscalculate, though. Not when each_ _second matched with his heartbeat._

_Exactly six hours later, when the school was fully surrounded by the darkness, two resounding knocks come from the door. It opened without anyone's permission._

_Nakamoto Yuta's head peers in, a blank expression on his face. Doyoung doesn't see fear in those eyes anywhere. There was no curiosity, guilt or doubt. He doesn't even look at Jinyoung's corpse. "They all have gone home now," he says._

_Unanimously, they all decide to bury Jinyoung in the school's garden._

_Johnny seemed to be the only one visibly disturbed. His face sunken and haunted, his mind cold and empty. The longer they stayed, the more they seemed to become like Johnny._

_Death was always life that. Many were snatched away, and those that were left would wish it was them._

_Doyoung wonders._

**_If we go onto the next path after death, will it be our last, or are we fated to keep walking?_ **

_It was clear to the five of them standing near the flowerbeds._

_The pink camellias were very much alive, and Choi Jinyoung wasn't._

  
. . .

  
"What's wrong Johnny? You've been acting tense the whole morning."

Yuta slides into the seat next to Johnny as puts his own tray of food on the table. The red of the kimchi reminded him too much of blood.

"It's nothing," Johnny answers.

"If you say so," Yuta dismisses but he gestures to the unusual guest joining them for lunch. "Why is _he_ eating with _us_?"

"Because Jaehyun said so," Taeyong informs him, as if it was the obvious answer. "Why are you _spearing_ your sausage with such vigor?"

Yuta stabs his sausage repeatedly with far more enthusiasm than before. Doyoung refuses to look at any of them in the eye.

The amount of food on his tray seemed too much, even for a big eater like Yuta. If anyone were to eat that many calories on a daily basis, their stomachs would surely burst. The image was disturbing.

Jaehyun moves his omelette to Doyoung's plate silently but their gazes follow his hands anyway. 

Taeyong does the same, meeting the unissued challenge.

Jaehyun turns his bowl of rice upside down to empty it on Doyoung's, his stare boring holes into Taeyong sitting across him.

Taeyong does the same, Doyoung’s own bowl overflowing.

It goes on for a while, Yuta watching it all go down amusingly and Johnny being lost in thought.

It wasn't long before there was no more space in Doyoung's plates. Both Jaehyun and Taeyong slide their trays to Doyoung's direction, the sound of metals scraping the table making the students wince.

The stares didn’t go unnoticed.

Doyoung could only sit there appalled by the unexpected treatment.

"I heard Choi Jinyoung's mother has been barking at your father since last week," Taeyong says.

"He's been _handling_ it. Though, I'm not sure how much longer he can take responsibility. It's either Choi Jinyoung shows up unscathed by the end of the week, or someone steps up to provide a reason for his sudden ghosting."

"What do you think happened to him?"

Taeyong's question successfully manages to catch everyone's attention. It was as if their ears had grown twice with how much they listened so attentively, waiting in anticipation for Jaehyun's answer.

"Who knows?" Jaehyun grins with chagrin. "He's probably _dead_."

The answer stuns them, but things proceed normally as the students pretend to be momentarily deaf.

No amount of chewing made it possible for Johnny to swallow.

 _"Where could Choi Jinyoung be?"_ A week ago they were all anyone was saying, anything to ease the terrible burden of worry.

The concern soon dissolves into solace. _"I don't care wherever he is, as long as he doesn't come back."_

But nobody knows. Nobody knows Johnny took a shovel to pile heaps of soil on Jinyoung's corpse six feet underground.

Nobody knows. Even the students in the gardening club who unknowingly stood directly above where he laid.

Nobody knows but the five of them eating in the center of the room acting as if they've done _no such thing._

It was as if they've assumed Choi Jinyoung was either burning up at this moment or safe in a capsule, dead or alive, like that damn Schrodinger's cat. Just to get rid of what little guilt they even had left.

They had no right to tell Johnny what to feel. _No_. That's a person right there, Choi Jinyoung - not a flea bag cat. 

In this suspended horror that every single person willed to end and to last an eternity at the same time, every eye is on them.

There is not a single person in this place who would feel sympathy for a scumbag like Jinyoung. Though, Johnny is perhaps the only one that would've required _sedation_.

  
. . .

  
_The silence breaks as soon as Jinyoung wretches his hand out from Johnny's grip. He clicks his tongue in annoyance, impatience clear in his voice._

_"Aren't you going to **say** anything?" _

_Johnny only hums as he glances to take a look at Jinyoung's face with a sense of familiarity. He had seen this particular expression too many times before._

_**Expectation**._

_It wasn't like Johnny was afraid, like a herd animal suddenly being told to lead a group of livestock to defeat a pack of wolves. No. It's just that he was always more capable in using his fists rather than his words. Perhaps that is why he often chooses silence._

_But Jinyoung's gaze never wavered, daring him to speak. Jinyoung's eyes spoke a thousand unsaid words while Johnny's held a million more._

_"The school code states that ear piercings aren't allowed. You're still wearing that earring," Johnny points out. He meant for the words to sound condescending, yet he sounded relieved._

_"Hypocrite."_

_They fall into momentary silence once again. Like clockwork, Jinyoung is the first to break._

_"Why did you drag me here?"_

_"Quite a show you put on today," Johnny sighs and glances away, grabbing Jinyoung's hand once again to interlock it with his as he stares into the distance. "Asshole."_

_He can already feel Jinyoung scowling at him, as if he was a child being accused of stealing pocket money from her mother's wallet. Still, he keeps his hand still as he follows Johnny's gaze. As if he was expecting to find something in the blank canvass of a scenery. "What are you talking about? Why am I the asshole?"_

_"I'm talking about Kim Doyoung. Did you really have to involve him in this mess?"_

_He hears the friction created by Jinyoung's shoes and the pavement as he shifts to grab Johnny's shoulders._

_"Johnny. Look at me," Jinyoung tells him. "I said look at me. I don't have much time anymore."_

_Surrendering, Johnny looks at him but Jinyoung's words only confuse him further._

_"What... do you mean?"_

_"The inheritance."_

_With Jinyoung's answer, suddenly the gears in Johnny's brain started to turn. Knowing this, Jinyoung continues._

_"Jaehyun doesn't know. But my mother told me... Uncle Hajoon is going to- He's going to die soon."_

_Johnny listens attentively, noticing that with every word Jinyoung spoke, the more it seemed like he couldn't breathe._

_"He's going to resign by the end of the school year and- and- He's going to give out his will. I'll be abandoned. I'll be abandoned Johnny. You know what Jaehyun's capable of," Jinyoung's voice was laced by desperation, his fingers digging into Johnny's shoulders with every word._

_Johnny takes a deep breath before he forces himself to speak, the air almost toxic. "Is... is that why you put Jaehyun's answer sheet in Kim Doyoung's backpack?"_

_"What?"_

_The hands on his shoulders slowly slide down._

_"The answer sheet, Jinyoung," Johnny repeats to prove his point. "Your plan clearly backfired. Even if Kim Doyoung really is Jaehyun's only weakness that we know of, he's the only one capable of keeping Jaehyun in line with academics. Did you expect to deal emotional damage? Jaehyun isn't that weak."_

_To his surprise, Jinyoung looked... flustered?_

_"No- I mean- I didn't put the answer sheet in the poor boy's backpack."_

_Johnny blinks. "What- what are you talking about? Wasn't it your plan all along?"_

_They both wore the same bewildered expression. It was laughable how they were almost identical. Looking at Jinyoung's face felt like looking at his reflection in the mirror._

_"I didn't plan anything. I just saw the answer sheet sticking out of his backpack when I passed by him in the hallways and concluded that he was the one who stole it."_

_Johnny unconsciously stumbles back. He wasn't expecting this development._

_"But- but... This doesn't make any sense. Why would Kim Doyoung steal Jaehyun's answer sheet when he's fully capable of scoring higher than him?"_

_"Maybe he didn't study hard enough and felt like the need to steal it. Let it go, Johnny. Even geniuses get tired sometimes."_

_There was an unsettling feeling in Johnny's stomach, something he couldn't quite explain. The more he thinks about it, the weirder things were. He's seen Kim Doyoung's semester modules being burned by Jinyoung himself and he still managed to receive full marks on the exams the next day, the day after that, and the weeks after._

_It wasn't possible for Kim Doyoung to memorize everything on the materials that have only been given out for a day then receive the highest scores possible in every test for the whole school year._

_The library was open to all students 24/7 but he couldn't have known the topics to study for._

_Kim Doyoung didn't have any friends either. All this time he was this unknown enigma to the student body._

_Yet Jaehyun seems to be fixated on him. There was something weird about Taeyong's reaction too._

_Did Kim Doyoung really steal Jaehyun's answer sheet? But... at what cost?_

_"Johnny?"_

_If he got caught, he knew the consequences would be severe. He wouldn't risk it._

_"Johnny?"_

_But... if it wasn't Jinyoung or Doyoung... then **who**?_

_"JOHNNY."_

_With his name being called out, Johnny pauses his train of thought. He finds Jinyoung's face mere inches away from his. "Yes?"_

_"You're doing that again." Jinyoung sighs as he steps back. "Spacing out."_

_"I was thinking."_

_"About what?"_

_"Kim Doyoung."_

_"What about him?" Jinyoung voices out his annoyance._

_Even geniuses get tired sometimes, that's what Jinyoung told him. But Kim Doyoung wasn't a genius. He was... way more. A monster._

_Johnny doesn't answer his question. Instead, he poses him with another. A leap of faith._

_"Can we not do this anymore?"_

_He regrets the decision as soon as the words leave his mouth. The moment Jinyoung's eyes narrowed with rage, it was like they were 16 years old again, spray painting the street walls with words that cursed out society, running away from their problems and police cars._

_"I see." Jinyoung's eyes glinted with rage. "This is just like back then, isn't it? You turning away from our-"_

_"Jinyoung-"_

_Johnny reaches out to him but ends up being pushed away._

_"Shut up!" Jinyoung screams, the veins in his neck making an appearance. "Shut. the. fuck. up. We were both there to witness the moment you stabbed me in the back. I was there when you decided I could be easily replaced."_

_"Jinyoung," Johnny starts once again, "you know I didn't have a choice–"_

_"You fucking did! You did have a choice, Johnny! We were... We were going to conquer the world. You- you promised me. Don't you remember?"_

_"Jinyoung... You know that if I didn't choose Jaehyun you wouldn't even be here right now!"_

_"Maybe I would've rather died then than watch you stand by his side!"_

_"Stop it! Don't say that you'd rather die!"_

_"I'm stupid- inferior, pitiful... weak. That's why you pretended not to know me back then, right? You wanted to be a part of his social circle so much that you'd rather treat me like I was invisible. You're all the same. My mother. Uncle Hajoon. Jaehyun. You. Was I not enough? Huh? Johnny? Was I not enough?!"_

_**I did it for you** , Johnny almost tells him._  
  
_But instead he looks away. "I'm sorry."_

_It was the only thing Johnny could tell him._

_"Don't be." Jinyoung laughs. Johnny could almost taste the bitterness laced in those words. "It's simple, remember?"_

_So come with those frayed edges and scratches, Jinyoung slowly walks away. His hand reaches deep into his pocket only to pull out a box of cigarettes._

**_You told me you quit long ago._ **

_Jinyoung meets his eyes with his own kind of emptiness. He once understood only with the slight shift in Johnny's gaze. It used to be like that._

_Johnny wonders if Jinyoung understood the unspoken words he was trying to convey now._

_"You tell me about Jaehyun's weakness, and I keep your little secret." Jinyoung reaches into his other pocket and pulls out a lighter. "God knows your father doesn't need you adding to his problems. Not after your family company's gone bankrupt, that is."_

_Johnny sees traces of it deep within Jinyoung. The person that they both once were._

_It was once that kind of friendship that blooms in the center of your heart – that kind of friendship that grows from the seed basking in the warm soil to a vast tree with many ups and downs, many – but not enough to disguise the enormity or the grandeur of such a tree, the sheer brilliance and beauty of it._

_He didn't even notice the cigarette being lit in Jinyoung's mouth, the spark of light not enough to illuminate the trace of emotions left in their faces as the sun completely sets. There was something rotten in his eyes as he took each drag._

_Johnny inhaled that grey stench, the odor that foretold of tar-infested lungs and Jinyoung's future death-bed._

_Maybe it was only wishful thinking. A highly impossible occurrence. Still, Johnny yearned._

_He yearned that death first comes knocking on Jung Jaehyun's door before the nicotine could proclaim itself as an honorable guest on Choi Jinyoung's funeral._

. . .

  
"I wonder why you're so bothered," Jaehyun tells him once they were left alone. Johnny's gaze wanders around Jaehyun's room as if he wasn't a friend but someone who climbed over the walls of his humble abode. 

That's what he felt like anyway. A stranger. A side character who had no relevant role to play in the first place.

"I'm _not_."

"You forgot that I can read you like the back of my hand, Johnny. Why did you come here?"

Jaehyun gestures for him to take a seat but Johnny doesn't make a move. 

"I just..." he starts, looking away and focusing on the grand piano placed in the middle of the room. "I _don't_ understand. No- It's more like... I _can't_."

The questions in his head swirled in a spiral. The longer he waited, the more they twisted. 

_How are you so confident that Kim Doyoung didn't kill Jinyoung?_

_Why does he seem important to you?_

_Why is he important to Taeyong?_

_Kim Doyoung. Kim Doyoung. Kim Doyoung. The social hierarchy. Outcast. Disappear. Disappear already. Die. Diediediedie-_

"Why are you all acting like nothing happened?"

And the dam breaks.

Jaehyun smiles at him. It was always that smile. In whatever situation, he always gets away with everything. Just with a simple curve of his lips. How unfair. No defects. Perfect human being, Jung Jaehyun.

Jaehyun takes the liberty of throwing his body ceremoniously on his bed, the silken mattress bouncing along with the movement. He laid there with his arms spread open, staring at the spotless ceiling. 

"Why are you acting like something _did_?"

"Because something _did_ happen, Jaehyun! You know-"

" _No_ ," Jaehyun cuts off sharply. "I don't know. What happened, Johnny? You were so obedient before. Why are you acting like this now? Tell me."

_You're insane. All of you._

Johnny needed to end it. Social standings. All these rules. Hierarchy. What was all of it for? Everything was fucking bullshit. 

_I need to tell everyone the truth._

"My father gave me the key to Choi Jinyoung's locker." Jaehyun raises a silver key, the metal glinting on its edges. He rises with ease in a sitting position, both feet now touching the floor. "Maybe this will make you understand. You want it, right?"

That's right. For now, Johnny had to remain playing the part of the loyal dog. He's done it for almost 3 years. 

_Jaehyun still doesn't need to know._

Johnny nods.

"I'll give it to you." Jaehyun stands up from his bed. "On _one_ condition. Promise me you'll burn everything. Can you do that?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

" _Yes_."

Jaehyun suddenly runs toward Johnny, grabbing his wrist in a firm grip. His blunt nails dig further into Johnny's pulse. He wonders if Jaehyun could feel his heart threatening to leap out of his chest.

" ** _Pinky promise, hope to die_** ," Jaehyun singsongs as he grins playfully, swinging their interlocked pinky fingers up and down. " _ **Swallow a thousand needles if you lie!**_ "

Johnny's fear only seems more real now.

  
. . .

"Mark is here."

Doyoung sighs, walking faster to the Principal's office. These people just never leave him alone. What does Hajoon want him for? 

"Stop begging for my attention."

Taeyong grabs his shoulder forcefully, managing to fling Doyoung's whole body backwards to face him. His face was set in a permanent frown. " _Listen_ to me! I'm not lying!"

The volume of Taeyong's voice captures the attention of some students nearby.

"Not here," Doyoung says under his breath, head facing the ground.

They turn a corner only for Doyoung to slam headfirst into Jaehyun's body. Naturally, with his frail built, he stumbles backward as he gradually loses his sense of gravity.

A hand on his wrist stops his fall. 

"Hey. Your ears are red," Taeyong points out, rolling his eyes at the display. 

Doyoung stares into Jaehyun's eyes, hoping to find more within them. But before could drown deeper, he feels Jaehyun slowly letting go of his wrist. "Watch where you're going next time."

_It didn't hurt._

The wounds on his wrist didn't hurt. He had to cut his arms open again tonight. 

Curiosity eating at him, Doyoung places a finger over his clothed arm, pressing into the marks himself. If he wasn't dreaming, it was where the first line of the letter M should be. _"Ah-"_

"What the _fuck_ -" Taeyong cries out in protest, but Jaehyun moves faster than any of them.

He pins both of Doyoung's arms to the wall, securing them in place on either side of Doyoung's head. 

"-are you doing..." Taeyong finishes, staring shamelessly in bewilderment at the scene before him.

_It hurt._

_That's disappointing._

Doyoung ignores Taeyong's concerns, looking only at Jaehyun mere inches away from his face. There was warmth coming from the hands pinning his arms. "Why didn't you grab them harder the first time?" 

Jaehyun blinks. " _What_?" 

"You were being _gentle_. It didn't hurt," Doyoung answers. 

"Excuse me?" Taeyong scoffs. However, he never turned away. "I'm right fucking here."

"You can let go of me now."

"What?" Jaehyun croaks out, surprising even himself by how many decibels his voice had climbed up to in a matter of seconds. He finally notices both of their positions. " _Oh_."

Doyoung is the first to look away.

Slowly, Jaehyun steps backward to give him room to work with, grip on both of his harms finally loose. 

Taeyong clears his throat. "Well that was the most physically _painful_ thing I ever had to watch. Thanks for the shit show that I didn't ask for. Are you two done now?"

Refusing to dig further into the meaning of Taeyong's words, Jaehyun proceeds to smooth out his clothes. But there was never a single crease in the first place. "What were you two doing?" 

Taeyong visibly gulps, body language an obvious tell that he was wary. "I was just-"

"Nothing," Doyoung interrupts. "We weren't doing anything."

_None that matters._

"Is that so?"

They're knee deep in silence. Taeyong and Doyoung watch as Jaehyun slowly walks away. 

"What about you?" Doyoung asks, stopping Jaehyun in his tracks. It meant that the fragile peace is over before it really had a chance to take root.

Jaehyun looks back. "Hm?"

"What were you about to do?"

" _Nothing_ ," he answers with a dimpled smile, then turning once again to walk away.

There was a certain rhythm to Jaehyun's footsteps. This time, he had a way of walking that made him seem perpetually in a hurry. His steps weren't long but they were rapid.

Clearly, it wasn't _nothing_. 

"Those stairs only lead to the Principal's office," Doyoung finds himself thinking out loud. "What could he be doing there?"

"What do you mean? There's nothing weird about him seeing his own father, is there?"

Doyoung slowly looks downward, the top of his head meeting Taeyong's questioning glare. 

"Look up here," Taeyong demands.

He needed to tell Doyoung about Mark right now. It was a vulnerable time for all of them. He doesn't quite know what his mother was thinking when she transferred Mark in the same school in the middle of the school year. They needed to carefully counter every single move she makes on the board, assuming that they were even playing the same game. 

Taeyong didn't have enough patience for every single person in the world today, even if that person was Kim Doyoung.

Doyoung does look up, the irises in his eyes blown wide for some unknown reason. 

"What? Did you find something surprising down there-"

Daringly, Taeyong looks down. Only to see a bulge in Doyoung's pants that surely wasn't there before.

Taeyong head snaps back upward, faster than the speed of light. The warmth spreads to their faces as they both flush red.

_"Y-yah Kim Doyoung! Are you fucking crazy?!"_

. . .

  
Jaehyun hears the door to his father's office open and shut, its creaking noise bringing a chill to his spine. It sounded like some dying animal, crying out its pain and sorrow with its last breath.

The ceiling light still illuminated the windowless office, but it was dim and flickered at strobe-like intervals.

"I told you not to bother me if it wasn't important," Hajoon looks up from his polished desk, an annoyed grimace fixed on his face as he looked at Jaehyun. "...didn't I?"

On the grey desk sat a desktop computer, a notebook lying open, and a stack of papers sitting under a turtle-shaped paperweight. A framed picture was cast to the side. With a little push, it would surely fall from the edge and shatter. 

"I apologize, father."

Jaehyun bows his head politely. He hears Hajoon grunt deeply in approval.

Looking up, he sees a glimpse of the picture on his father's desk. That surely was the younger version of him in the middle. Jaehyun doesn't need to take another look at it to conclude that he surely took those days for granted. 

At least back then he wasn't forced to wear a smile, his parents standing on either side of him. The three of them put on varying degrees of impassive looks for the family photographer. Jaehyun's mother, Minji, looked so out of place it was _laughable_. Her hand placed on his shoulder as if he was a lifeline, a surge of humbug hidden by nonchalance. 

His father, Hajoon, on the other hand, looked like he'd rather be _anywhere else_ than to congratulate his son for winning first place on a national piano competition despite playing with a _broken wrist._

Lastly, Jaehyun just looked... Huh, that's funny.

_Even then I looked empty._

"What it a necessity that you come bother me at such a crucial time?" Hajoon says, sighing as he chooses to show at how adept he is at signing documents rather than giving Jaehyun a fraction of his time.

Carefully, Jaehyun slips his hand inside his pocket to place what seemingly looked to be a white substance locked inside a transparent plastic bag on top of his father's desk.

Hajoon's hand halts movement. "What is this?"

" _Cocaine_."

"I see." Hajoon finally looks up to look at him with an expression of intrigue. "You have my attention."

_First hurdle cleared._

"Where do you think my dear cousin could be?" 

Hajoon leans back on his chair, now completely relaxed. "I'm surprised you're concerned about his whereabouts."

" _I'm not_ ," Jaehyun replies bitterly. "Years of Jinyoung tailing me like a dog with his collar marked ' _jealousy_ ' would hardly make me consider him family."

"Then why are you here?"

"Somehow, I felt the responsibility of protecting someone I need."

"Oh?"

"A week ago, I found this bag of cocaine in Jinyoung's possessions," Jaehyun gestures to the drug on Hajoon's desk. "If you want more evidence, he's probably keeping the rest inside his locker. He's been starting his own dirty business here, right under our noses. Just to prove to you that he's a far more worthy heir than I am."

"Well that was quite the bold attempt, don't you think so?" Hajoon smirks from his seat. "I could've applauded him for even trying. But... I wonder, Jaehyun. How could he have _managed_ to escape your radar for this long?"

It was a low blow. But something vital. If he made out the story to be one damaging his own dignity, then Hajoon may just believe it to be the truth. 

Jaehyun grits his teeth. "With a reputation like Jinyoung's, he couldn't have done it on his own. He targeted first years and Kim Doyoung by forcing them to do his school work."

Hajoon's eyes narrow by a margin. Jaehyun wonders how long his father had holed himself up in his office to the point that he doesn't know the cases of bullying occuring in this place. 

"Others wouldn't trust him with his violent and idiotic nature," Jaehyun continues. "And that's exactly why he needed _someone_ with a large influence on the student body. Jinyoung was scum until the very end. I didn't even know my enemy's friend was right beside me."

"Do you mean..."

Jaehyun nods.

"Yesterday, _Johnny_ told me he couldn't do it anymore," the practiced words slip out with ease. "He begged Jinyoung several times that he wanted out. That he felt too guilty doing it behind my back, his _friend_. Johnny said he wished he quit being used by Jinyoung long ago. Before everything went wrong. Before..." 

Hajoon waits to hear the conclusion to his story. 

Through perfect teeth comes the truth and the lies, all vibrations in the air, inconsequential to the medium through which they travel. Only Jaehyun knows the difference. 

"Before he accidentally murdered Jinyoung."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh. You actually made it here?! CONGRATS😆 There's a lot of things to nitpick on~
> 
> *The Dreamies are finally here!!! Actually they've been here since Chapter 5 but I wasn't too sure if I wanted them to appear in a very dark fanfic XD But then I thought "this just keeps getting darker anyway. why not?"
> 
> *Pink camellias symbolize longing for someone. Surprisingly, it applies to Jinyoung, Johnny, Yuta, Taeyong, Jaehyun and Doyoung. I'll let you draw your own conclusions~
> 
> *Schrodinger's cat - In simple terms, Schrodinger stated that if you place a cat and something that could kill the cat (a radioactive atom) in a box and sealed it, you would not know if the cat was dead or alive until you opened the box, so that until the box was opened, the cat was (in a sense) both "dead and alive"  
> ~Get dat education y'all~
> 
> *"Pinky promise, hope to die~ Swallow a thousand needles if you lie~!" Fcking hell these lines were so creepy to write😂 Since Jaehyun's character portrays someone who can actually make Johnny swallow a thousand needles if he breaks his promise. This is called "Yubikiri" in Japan which literally translates to "finger cutting". Yuta taught them the chant :DDDD
> 
> *And yes. I did make Johnny bury his "ex-lover" with his own hands. Boi.
> 
> *I have a feeling the Jaehyun hate train is arriving again😂 Do you know that feeling when you see an attractive person and automatically think they're kind people too? That's that Jaehyun phenomenon happening in this fic keke
> 
> Due to school stuff and all that, I am sorry to tell you that the updates will be very. AND I MEAN VERY. irregular from now on (Regular, huh?) ≖‿≖ 
> 
> I have a feeling I'm using this fic as a punching bag for my frustrations on my own high school~ WELL. SEE YOU NEXT CHAPTER!!!
> 
> HAPPY QUOTE (HAPPY PICTURE?)  
> https://www.google.com/search?q=doyoung+king+of+masked+singer&client=ms-android-oppo-rev1&prmd=ivn&sxsrf=ALeKk00-NtPQ7ZEvrGbE-lraMUBvw4caeg:1595093442054&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwii4PyPqtfqAhVFIIgKHfuzCawQ_AUoAXoECA4QAQ&biw=360&bih=672&dpr=2#imgrc=d7wq_aBF27YnsM


	11. Maybe I'm killing you, maybe you're killing me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonjour. 
> 
> We'll talk about my excuses on why I took so long to update later😂 For now, you may read this monster composed of 7k+ words
> 
> Please excuse the typos and errors~

"Interesting, isn't it?" Donghyuck grins coyly as he digs his index finger in Mark's left cheek, doing his best to be an annoyance.

Too bad years of experience with Donghyuck's antics had left Mark immune to most of them.

"What is?" Mark asks without looking up from the textbook he was currently occupied with. He didn't even so much as blink.

Half of the time Donghyuck wonders if Mark really was human or just a robot programmed to study for the rest of his life. Although that probably wasn't that far from the truth.

Mark had insisted to go over his notes ten minutes before their History quiz, in which the two ended up seated in an isolated corner of the library. Their hushed whispers remain contained from row after row of neatly lined up books with spines facing outward, the other students focused on surviving the next assessment exam.

And here they are.

Donghyuck resists to roll his eyes at Mark's over the top dedication when he was fully capable to get high scores. _Just like his brother, his_ mind adds in rebellion. The matter of _which brother_ was left in debate with his other functioning braincells.

He sighs in frustration at the lack of attention and rests his chin on the edge of the table. He's fairly certain Mark's insecurity will be his downfall. 

"The moment you were transferred here, in the _middle_ of the semester, a third year goes missing. Not to mention," Donghyuck drags out, "that the missing person is Choi Jinyoung."

"And?"

"Choi Jinyoung? The person who specifically tormented your brother?"

Mark stops reading. He closes the textbook with a quiet snap and finally looks at Donghyuck's face stricken with an eerie calmness.

Perhaps he hit a nerve.

"For the last time, Kim Doyoung is _not_ my brother."

"Then what the fuck is he?" Donghyuck hisses as he is quick to counter Mark's declaration, yet his tone remains collected to not garner unnecessary attention. "The two of you were _birthed_ from the same fucking womb, Mark. So whether you will the gods to alter your genetics and have not even one similar DNA strand, Kim Doyoung is still your fucking brother. You _shriveled piece of aubergine._ "

"Hyuck."

"Sorry. You were pissing me off."

He wasn't that sorry. Not necessarily. But Mark nods to accept his half-assed attempt of even giving one. "Your vocabulary drastically improves when you think things are unfair."

"I fail to see your point. Who wouldn't feel unfair when they're with you every walking moment of the day?" Donghyuck bats his eyelashes provocatively.

"Right," Mark dismisses, standing up in initiation to head to History class and no doubt ace that quiz. "Can we please not talk about him? At least... not here."

Donghyuck compares the situation to him kicking a vulnerable puppy on the middle of the street. To _save_ the animal's life from a colossal monster truck running towards it at the speed of light, that is. He sighs and collects his belongings, muttering curses under his breath as they exit the library to make sure Mark is aware he's not the least bit pleased. 

It'll be hard bringing up the same topic again but he'll get his chances.

The head librarian, in particular, looked the most relieved to see Donghyuck finally leave. Perhaps he scared the old bat too much when he once randomly placed pink thumbtacks on the library chairs. The school nurse had a field day on that one.

"What do you think, though?" Donghyuck continues to pesters Mark on their way. 

"Hyuck," Mark warns again. 

"It's a weird coincidence. Don't tell me you don't find it strange at all. It's as if someone's been waiting for this exact moment," he curves the subject smoothly in temporary defeat. Mark doesn't notice and thinks he might've been mistaken, obvious in his face of guilt from snapping at Donghyuck.

_Fine_ , he wouldn't talk about Kim Doyoung. But he will cross the line when he sees the chance.

"I couldn't care less about a missing student," Mark huffs out with finality. "I have things I need to do here. My mother-"

"Is painful enough to make you feel alive, I imagine," Donghyuck states as if it was a fact. Mark could only laugh at the accuracy, forgetting for a moment that they were talking about the woman to whom he was another mouth to feed.

"Still, it's suspicious, right?" Donghyuck continues. "Something happened in the cafeteria that involved all of them the day before Choi Jinyoung went missing."

Mark immediately stops walking.

_Curiosity. You're on my side after all._

"What do you mean?"

Donghyuck grins as he finally catches Mark's interest. "Taeyong- _sunbae_ literally slammed Choi Jinyoung to the wall and threatened to stab him with a pencil. On the other hand Jaehyun- _sunbae_ asked him if he wanted a concussion. No matter how I see it, they're both somehow involved in this. I wouldn't be surprised if Kim Doyoung is too, considering that they made the threats for his sake."

"Wait-" The gears start turning rapidly in Mark's head. " _Made the threats for his sake?_ "

"Well...yes," Donghyuck answers. He wasn't there to actually witness it happen but Renjun was. And if there's anyone who actually walked this whole institution with more brutal honesty than Huang Renjun then he'll be damned. 

Mark stares at Donghyuck with expectation so he explains it as direct as possible. Not the whole essay and semantics Renjun relayed to him as if it was a theater performance— no. That would take them a whole day standing in this hallway.

"There was a commotion in the cafeteria that involved Doyoung- _sunbae_ and Jinyoung- _sunbae_ ," Donghyuck starts as they resumed walking. "Those two rushed to help him. Which is one of the many red flags for their already weird behavior with anything that has to do with Kim Doyoung. It's like they're competing on who's more obsessed with him or something."

Without even noticing, the two of them were already standing before the classroom door. Mark lifts his wrist to his face and checks his watch to see the minute hand move to one o'clock at that exact moment. Just as he had anticipated. 

"Mark," Donghyuck's gentle inquiring voice calls out the moment he grabs to twist the doorknob. "Why did your mother transfer you here in the middle of the school year?"

"You know why," he answers. Because it was the truth.

"It's too... inhumane."

"Why would it matter?"

"Because your brother is desperately trying to get you back."

Mark appears shaken, but quickly retains his composure. "I told you Hyuck. I have things to do here. I have to be smarter—" he shakes his head as he corrects himself, " _better_ than him. If I want to remain as who I am."

"But is that all who you are? Mark Lee. A selfish bastard who keeps on running away."

"I guess I am," Mark answers with finality as he opens the door, determined to ace that History quiz. "If running away means I'm standing nowhere behind him."

. . .

Mark hated to admit it but Doyoung had always been a different breed of cunning. 

When they were starving children and begged people for money passing the streets, they wouldn't have succeeded if it wasn't for Doyoung telling foreign people lies about how Mark was made to stop going to school (he's never been to one yet in the first place) and that their father had fallen sick (sick of the mere sight of the two of them doing nothing to earn their family money) and is dying of some incurable disease. 

They all spoke in a language Mark couldn't understand. Sometimes it sounded like English, a language quite familiar to him as Doyoung had tried teaching him basic sentences. 

Doyoung had told him that to say _"Excuse me"_ was _"My parents are dead"_ in English. It certainly worked to get people's attention. 

To say _"Can you please give me some money_ " was roughly translated to _"I haven't eaten for weeks."_ It worked like a charm and Mark had swore since then to follow Doyoung's every word.

The next day Doyoung was speaking Thai. Then before Mark could even notice, his brother was already fluently alternating between Japanese and Mandarin before the week could even actually end.

The others beggars could only watch and listen at how an eight year old boy had managed to convince various people to actually give them money. A few more words from Doyoung's mouth and the fools could have actually sold their kidneys for a literal child that had outsmarted them all.

"Just act like you're about to cry but don't actually let your tears fall, okay?"

"Why, _hyung_?" Mark asked in genuine curiosity.

"Because if you cry for real, people would distance themselves from the trouble of dealing with your problems. You're irrelevant to them. _But_ ," Doyoung countered as he grasped both of Mark's shoulders, "if you look like you're holding it in and trying to remain strong, they're more likely to pity you. People are drawn to other's weakness. They take advantage of it to make themselves feel even more superior. It's all a show. This is how the world works. We have to be smarter than them. Do you understand Mark?"

"I understand _hyung_!"

Doyoung nods, his presence towering over Mark, more adult than any adult he's ever known in his whole life.

"Just like what _eomma_ always tells us, right?" Doyoung reminded him as he twisted his fingers within the dark locks of Mark's unkempt hair. 

Back then, Mark had thought it was a form of affection. But now, he wonders if it really was just that. A form of affection? Or another accessory his brother made him choose to wear to keep up their daily routine of playing orphan?

"When someone makes you decide between a knife and a gun—"

"You don't just choose the gun," Mark continued to grin childishly as he looked up, the expression mirrored on his brother's face.

"You take both, fucking imbecile," the two of them finished in a chorus.

. . .

"Why is Mark Lee here? I thought your mother wanted to keep him as far away as possible from Doyoung," Jaehyun mutters in a clear voice, successful in breaking the serenity inside the Student Council room.

The mention of two very familiar names made Taeyong's fingers stop gliding smoothly on his laptop's keyboard. It was usually an automatic movement. He was able to finish paperwork and proposals even if his thoughts went flying to another country, his hands moving like clockwork without Johnny and Yuta even noticing he was spacing out.

Jaehyun, on the other hand, was a different level of attentive. 

_Observant rat._

He probably had eyes on the back of his head. Hell, it wasn't even impossible if he had eyes on the back of Taeyong's head.

Taeyong grits his teeth knowing he had to give Jaehyun a response in the span of thirty seconds or he'd be considered a threat to the man's life and dignity. Who knows what's going on inside Jaehyun's head? He's probably thinking that Taeyong's already made an elaborate plan to kill him and had made the necessary precautions to counter every possibility.

Calculatingly paranoid. And disturbing. Like a looming puppeteer. 

"Your brother is here?" Yuta's voice rings from one corner of the room to shake him from his thoughts. "Why?"

_Oh right_ , he needed to respond. 

"Does Doyoung know?" Jaehyun asks with what seemed like nonchalance, before Taeyong could even say a word. 

Taeyong shakes his head no, "I told him, but he..." A memory inserts it's dominance in his head and Taeyong feels the heat rise to his face when he remembers Doyoung and his random boner, " _he_ \- he got distracted!"

"Why is your face red?"

_Fuck you, Yuta_ , he curses in his thoughts. 

"Why is your face conveniently well made but your head filled with only stupidity?" Taeyong snaps backs to Yuta as an excuse. Wrong move. Jaehyun notices the defense mechanism.

Yuta raises both hands in mock surrender. "Hey, easy on the gay. Ti amo, no homo. You sure are as snappy as yesterday."

Taeyong rolls his eyes before he notices one corner of the room left barren. "Where's Johnny?"

"He told me he was assigned to check all the student lockers for today," Yuta answered, throwing his whole body to spread out on the couch. "One of the students got caught with marijuana."

"You sound disappointed," Jaehyun chuckles innocently from his seat, glancing at Yuta's antics.

"Yeah," Yuta continues to hang his body on the edge of the sofa, but just enough to keep him from falling on the carpeted floor, "I thought the students here were smart enough to not get caught doing illegal shit. That's why my parents enrolled me here, remember? So that I have actual competition to match my overachieving brother?"

"You're disappointed they got caught easily? Not because they were doing something illegal?" Taeyong asks in disbelief.

Although, Yuta did make a convincing point. 

"We're high school students. We're supposed to be _rebellious_ ," Yuta whines in complaint, imagination probably soaring high at his image of youth and freedom, "And yet I'm stuck with four people who are the complete opposite!"

" _Four_?" 

"You, Jaehyun, Johnny and Doyoung," Yuta tells Taeyong casually, counting every name with his fingers and missing the confusion written across his friends’ faces. "I swear to Buddha were all raised like human cattle or something-

"Wait— What do you mean _Doyoung_?" Jaehyun stops him in a serious tone, with the underlying hint of bewilderment.

A momentary silence plagues the room. 

Taeyong is almost afraid for Yuta's next move. But they recover quickly thanks to his brash attitude. It left the situation suffocating, but bearable.

"Weren't you planning to recruit him to the student council? I thought he was already a part of us. Did I..." Yuta glances at Jaehyun's face, perhaps searching for a reaction, "think wrong?"

Looking for approval. This was the reason Yuta will always be inferior in his parent's eyes. Taeyong let his bitter thoughts slip away.

"He would fit right in, wouldn't he? After all, we did... _assist_ him," Yuta continues with a knowing gleam in his eyes. "I just thought you might've wanted him to return the favor."

Taeyong glances at Jaehyun, who had returned at looking at the glaring words on his own laptop screen. He lets out a mere hum. 

And Taeyong knew that was the only answer they were going to get.

"Taeyong," Jaehyun calls and automatically, Taeyong's neck snaps to his direction. "Did you had any idea about Mark transferring here?"

"No," he answers honestly.

"Do you know the reason why?"

"No," he lies.

"Did you just lie to me?"

Yuta's only glances for a second at their direction, before turning back on his phone and checking every notification.

"Yes," Taeyong sighs in defeat, pressing on every letter of his laptop's keyboard with much intensity.

"I see."

Damn right, he sees. Probably from his eyes at the back of Yuta's head this time.

  
. . .

A new day. 

And "new" could perhaps be the only thing Doyoung can be sure of. It was always a _new_ day. But things were always supposed to stay relatively the _same_ as yesterday. 

He was Kim Doyoung — a genius. A social outcast. But now he isn't quite sure if he's still the latter.

The morning began promisingly enough. His back didn’t ache as much. He could even attempt to lift his head and jerk his body up without any horribly excruciating amount of pain (that is, if he wanted to). The lines on his arms were drawn out recently, the pain a numbing assurance. 

Doyoung thinks the change might've been triggered by three things.

The first was Choi Jinyoung's murder. 

His _eomma_ had always told him that death was the gateway to rebirth. It wasn't a mere steady progression, or a gruesome countdown to the demise of the inflicted. 

_"It's nothing for you to be afraid of, Doie,"_ she said.

Doyoung felt assured, at most. To witness with his own eyes the departure of his main perpetrator.

But there were still a few things amiss. A few days ago, Jinyoung had told him something quite... _strange_. 

Doyoung didn't see it coming. It happened after classes were over and students had immediately left to go home. He had dragged Doyoung's whole body to somewhere desolate and shoved a piece of photograph on his face. 

Clueless, he could only blink slowly as his eyes adjusted to the image before him. 

Jinyoung grabbed the collar of Doyoung's uniform like a madman seeking answers that would soothe his hunger. 

"Is this you?" he seethed while pointing at a man on the center of the photograph. Standing on his right was another man, and on his left we're two beautiful women — one of them carrying a bundle of cloth on her arms. 

No. A _baby_.

Doyoung's heartbeat raced rapidly. 

_How? How did Jinyoung find that picture? Nobody... Nobody wasn't supposed to know._

He suddenly felt sick, the contents of what little he had for dinner last night slowly rising up to his throat. 

Doyoung stared at Jinyoung while pretending like his own eyes were made up of two black holes, a never-ending depth of ignorance. Maybe if he did it long enough then Jinyoung would just leave him alone.

He knew for a fact that Jaehyun would be satisfied even if his cousin had only managed to shove Doyoung against flat surfaces for the day. He assumed there was a tomorrow, after all.

Fuming in impatience, Jinyoung slammed his head to the concrete wall. Doyoung had let out an involuntary groan of pain but was eternally grateful that the pieces of his skull were still intact. He still needed his head, thank you very much.

"Is this you?" Jinyoung demanded once again.

" _N-no_ ," he gasped out, "I certainly don't look anything like him."

Jinyoung laughed in disbelief at his answer. "Of course you don't," He had let go of Doyoung's collar and roughly pushed him on the ground. Doyoung trembled quietly, afraid of more people hearing just how miserable he was.

And Jinyoung knew this, celabrating on the fact that Doyoung was alone, rejoicing that there was no one to help someone so pitiful.

"I'll tell everyone," Jinyoung threatened, looking at what Doyoung was reduced to. Then he looked away, perhaps disgusted. "If you don't do anything soon to overthrow Jaehyun from the top of the hierarchy, I'll tell everyone about this. Even Jaehyun will know.” 

He always got a bit too close for Doyoung's liking.

"It's your move this time, Kim Doyoung."

That was strange. Jinyoung thought their lives were a game of chess. Perhaps their views were too different. Because Doyoung thought they were playing a game of life.

It was too bad Jinyoung got outsmarted in the middle of it. It never made way to became Doyoung's loss, his secrets still his own to keep.

Which brings up the matter of the second reason for the shift in his daily life — Lee Taeyong's sudden change of attitude. 

Taeyong was always a weird person in Doyoung's eyes. He'd meddle in situations he would get nothing out of just because Doyoung was somehow involved in it. Why? He said it himself — that he didn't owe Doyoung anything. In fact, Doyoung's mere presence is a visual reminder that Taeyong's whole family ruined his chances of ever feeling warmth within the cold and dark crevices of the world. 

And yet Taeyong was one of the people who had found out about one of Doyoung's many secrets, and didn't tell anyone else.

At first, Doyoung assumed that Taeyong just didn't want to risk his reputation by being associated with someone like him. Doyoung was fine with that. He wouldn't talk— not that he usually did anyway without stuttering. He didn't even have anyone to talk to. His father cursing him out for his damnation of a life didn't count. 

But perhaps Taeyong assumed otherwise, accusing him of plotting to tell everyone of how he broke a dance student's ankles.

After all, it wasn't bones he actually broke, but a _future_.

_Oh right._ Doyoung might've suggested that particular set of procedures the day his peaceful lunch break was interrupted by Taeyong's suicide attempt on the school rooftop. But he couldn't quite remember.

The irony was how quickly Doyoung's mind got to work on memorizing Lee Taeyong's whole framework the moment he showed up to work on the same sex den.

Doyoung's mind screamed danger. Fear. Panic. He was done for. Zero chances of getting Mark back. He might as well have ended his life right there and then.

But Taeyong only looked shocked for a second, then grinned like a wild animal. _"We're co-workers? Wanna fuck sometime?"_

While Doyoung suffered in their workplace, Taeyong seemed to have sought it out himself. 

They both kept each other's secrets. But they weren't _friends_. Just people who happened to be associated. It should've ended at that. 

It should've.

But Taeyong just had to find out that Doyoung was planning to kill his mother if he didn't get Mark back by the end of the school year.

In the span of time Doyoung had analyzed Taeyong's actions, the more he sees it that the man was driven only by his impulses. Taeyong cared too much. It made Doyoung uncomfortable, a weird feeling always settling in his stomach.

Gut instincts aside, the third reason for the change in his life is also the main one. Coincidentally, Jung Jaehyun stands before him like a looming figure of authority.

Doyoung gives him a morbid look, his eyes asking Jaehyun, _Weren't you supposed to not talk to me?_

Jaehyun raises an eyebrow at Doyoung when he glances at the people around them, looking as if the two had passed out free admission tickets to a circus act.

Then as soon as Doyoung realized the gravity of the situation, he was already being pulled by the wrist to an empty classroom. 

Jaehyun closes the window blinds and locks the door, making sure no one would be able to hear them. _Always so careful._

"Mark is here," he tells Doyoung in a single breath.

Doyoung stares at him blankly, taking in every detail. He pulls a chair for him to sit on comfortably, the legs scraping the tiled floor with a high pitched drag. It wasn't everyday Jaehyun was the one who actually willingly talked to him.

He felt _special_ , somehow.

"Why would he be?" Doyoung asks, pulling the sleeves of his jacket to cover the lines on his wrist. 

He hears a sharp click of the tongue. Jaehyun sits on top of the desk in front of where he sat and crosses his legs. Usually the posture would seem like a defensive stance, and yet Jaehyun used it as the complete opposite as he peers down at Doyoung's face with a sneer and a deep growl.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" 

Doyoung sits there cross-eyed. Half star struck, half catatonic.

Jaehyun pulls back. Yet he's still manages to be somewhat provocative. After a beat of concluding that Doyoung wouldn't offer him an answer, Jaehyun sighs. 

"I asked Taeyong the same thing. I thought the two of you were planning a revolution against me or something. But you seem to have genuinely no idea that your brother is attending the same school."

Before the information about Mark's whereabouts registers in his mind, Doyoung is gratified with a sense of bitterness. 

"Is _that_ the only reason you came to talk to me? Because you thought I was doing something that would go against you?" Doyoung was met with the same silence he gave Jaehyun before. "You... you know I wouldn't. I would never."

He felt betrayed. 

Of course. This was Jaehyun. Why didn't he see this coming? He should've known.

"There's actually a second reason."

Doyoung looks up.

"I need your input on what happened the day you found Choi Jinyoung's body."

_Nevermind_.

Doyoung resists to sigh in frustration. He didn't think there was actually a much worse situation than one of his clients forgetting where he placed the keys for the handcuffs he used, leaving Doyoung chained naked to the bedpost and waiting for Taeil to save his ass from being late to school the next day.

Jaehyun stares at him in expectation, unknowing of the distractions running through Doyoung's mind. 

"Jinyoung told me to meet him inside that classroom once most of the students have already went home," Doyoung explains. "I have no idea for what reason he wanted me there, in that specific time. The moment I got there, he was already," he glances at Jaehyun's face to seek some kind of emotion beneath the usual blankness. But compared to the expression he saw on Jinyoung's face that day, Jaehyun only seemed more "... _dead_."

"I see," Jaehyun says, standing up to leave.

"Wait-" It was too late before he could stop himself, but Doyoung had already grabbed Jaehyun's hand to keep him from leaving. Jaehyun stares at where Doyoung was holding him and Doyoung quickly lets go, afraid of the consequences. He quickly blurts out an excuse.

"I'm s-sorry. I didn't mean to- I was just-"

"Doyoung," Jaehyun cuts him off. "Do you still love me?"

_The same question._

"Yes," Doyoung responds without hesitation.

"Then quit your job."

The moment he hears those words, Doyoung's mind temporarily short circuits. Every brain cell was slowly shutting down as he even tries to make up a decent response.

What comes out of his mouth from his already deluded mind was a small whimper. To make things worse, Doyoung seemed to think that a great follow-up is a high-pitched confusion in the form of a singular stuttered word:

"W-what?" 

"Quit your job," Jaehyun confirms for him once more, knowing that Doyoung must've thought he heard wrong. "The other reason you're staying other than for Mark is because you've found other men to replace me with, didn't you?"

It was as if Jaehyun had weaponized his emotional indifference. It just... hurt. But in that context, the word " _hurt_ " holds a lot more meaning than usual definitions. It is a lingering pain, one Doyoung could only shake by gaining a greater perspective, by standing back and imagining himself as someone who loved himself.

"Jaehyun, I- I never replaced you."

"Ah," Jaehyun spares him a glance. "In case you have the wrong idea, I don't care about you or what you do in your spare time. I don't do anything for your sake or anyone else-"

" _I know_ ," Doyoung cuts in sharply, his voice turning into a whisper with every time he repeated the words like a mantra. "I know... I know."

"If you really mean that, then you would never go back to that place ever again."

In protest, Doyoung accidentally knocks the chair down to the floor, the sharp sound not enough to overpower his voice. _"I have to!"_

_"Why?!"_ Jaehyun shouts back in a louder volume. And there it was. Anger.

"Because _I have to_ Jaehyun! Why can't you just understand that?! Why is no one on my side? Why won't anyone-" He needed something to hold on to. Something that would keep him from slipping away. Doyoung grabs strands of his own hair, cowering on the floor as he hid his face between his knees. "Why won't _you_... believe me?" 

He couldn't tell him about anything. About Hajoon. About the pain. About how much it hurt him. He was beyond help now.

"Stop playing the martyr, Doyoung. It doesn't suit you."

When Doyoung doesn't look up for a long while, Jaehyun sighs. "How much are you, then? If I wanted to fuck you right here and now... How much would it cost me?"

"Leave," a muffled cry. " _Please_... _leave_."

"No," Jaehyun stubbornly stands his ground. "Tell me. Those countless men you sleep with every night are part of the reason why you're going back, aren't they? Doing something like this... and for what?"

The only movement he had stirred was a flinch from Doyoung, hands still covering his head in a grasp.

"Mark's not going to come back," Jaehyun silently moves to level with Doyoung, sitting down on the floor in front of him. He waits patiently for Doyoung to look at him. "Look at what he has now— The things you were never able to give him back then. He has a whole life ahead of him. Can't you see? He's finally normal."

Slowly... Doyoung lifts his head, his hold on his hair loosening. " _Normal_?"

Just as Jaehyun had expected, not a single tear on his face.

"What is _normal_ , Jaehyun? Is anything normal? Does normal matter?"

"You're going to be what destroys him, Doyoung," Jaehyun grabs Doyoung's face, digging his fingers in either sides of his cheeks. A physical restraint. Now he wouldn't be able to look away.

"And why does it matter to you?!" Doyoung rages out as he struggles to get away from Jaehyun's hold. "He's _my_ brother. He's _my_ responsibility. You have no say in this. No one has."

Jaehyun brings his face closer to Doyoung's, their eyes meeting with the same level of intensity. 

"Because I know you're willing to drag Mark back even if it kills you. At this point... You'll destroy yourself first. And for what? Do you want him to suffer as much as you? Is this some kind of petty revenge?"

With probably the remaining power he could muster, Doyoung shoves Jaehyun. The move was so sudden that it shook Jaehyun to his core, his back landing on the floor with a loud thud.

"I'll graduate. And get a job. I'll provide for him myself. I can make him feel _normal_ again if that's what he wants," Doyoung says on top of him, restraining both of Jaehyun's wrists in a firm lock. "All I need is time."

Jaehyun doesn't make a move to struggle in Doyoung's hold. He merely smiles. "But your time's running out too fast. You won't be able to make it. And by then, it'll be too late. You'll regret it, Doyoung. Regret it for the rest of your life."

Sometimes the pain crushes people, leaving them incapable of everything. It leaves someone broken, in and out. 

"Let's make a wager then. If I would really regret it or not."

But for Doyoung, the tears won't roll down. The screams won't escape past quivering lips. The hallucinations would come, but they wouldn't allow him to react and let the steam go. They'd force the steam to keep burning, staining. The pain is real, and so is the agony.

Jaehyun finally moves, shoving him using sheer strength to switch their positions. Now, he was above him. "You have an awful lot of confidence for someone who has nothing."

Doyoung smirks from under him. 

"Why shouldn't I be, Jaehyun? I've never lost against you."

. . .

  
"Why are you following me?"

"I figured it was about time," Jaehyun briefly answers. 

"About time? For _what_?" Taeyong wears a puzzled expression, Jaehyun's train of thought still a surging perplexity.

"How long are we still going to walk for?"

Taeyong sighs in realization. So that's how it is. 

"Jaehyun. For the last time, you're not fucking allowed to follow me to the sex den I work at just because Doyoung is way too clever in getting you lost halfway there!" he hisses in a shout-whisper, gritting his teeth.

"That's exactly why I'm following you. Because you're not as smart."

"Go fuck yourself," he snaps, completely offended. "I'm skipping work.”

He wasn't. He had skipped way too many and Taeil would have his ass fired if he didn't go today. And then he wouldn't be able to see Doyoung anymore-

_Wait._ When was it about seeing Doyoung? Wasn't it always about convincing him to quit the shady line of work so that they could rethink of a better plan for him to get Mark back?

He shakes his head.

This was about not owing anyone anything. He was repaying Doyoung what he owed him. Repaying Mark what he owed him.

Get your mind out of the gutter, Lee Taeyong. He had one too many distractions today.

"So how far is it?" Jaehyun's voice brings him back to reality.

Taeyong sighs in frustration. He sees a coffee shop on one corner of the street. _A chance._

Maybe if he distracts Jaehyun enough, he can somehow get away.

As expected, Jaehyun follows him when he pushes the doors open, the chime of the bell on top of their heads and the familiar aroma of caffeine drawing them in further.

Jaehyun doesn't bother to whisper in his ear and shamelessly announces, "This doesn't look like a sex den." 

He almost strangles Jaehyun right then an there. But there were about 20 people that could testify as witnesses and Taeyong had a feeling he was being played. 

Jung Jaehyun, _you unpredictable paramount._

Automatically, a dozen heads have turned in their direction at Jaehyun's words. Taeyong, whose pupils have widened at maximum capacity, could only stand there frozen and embarrassed for the both of them. 

"Welcome!" a cheery voice interrupts Taeyong's dillema. It belonged to the person behind the counter. He squints his eyes to read the name written on the horrendous name tag. Yangyang. Written in neon orange font in front of a darker orange background. "Splendid entrance! 11 out of 9. What can I get you?"

"Uhm," Taeyong starts, glancing carefully at his surroundings. The people who had glanced over in their direction now minded their own businesses, sipping from their cups of tea and surrounding themselves with serene chatter. This place was weird. "One Americano. Regular."

"And you?" He gestures to Jaehyun.

"Same."

"That would be-"

" _Sir, how many times do I have to tell you?!"_ a voice from the back interrupts Yangyang, causing the smile on his face to falter for a moment. The shouting continues. _"We don't deliver! This is a coffee shop! If you want to die from eight shots of espresso then I'll gladly let you do it right here in front of the counter once you pick up your order-"_

Yangyang lets out a forced laugh. "Excuse me for a moment," he then proceeds to walk at the back where the loud voice was coming from. Taeyong glances at Jaehyun but he was only met with a shrug.

_"Hendery! Why are you shouting at the customers on the phone?!"_ Yangyang shouts, voice travelling the whole inside of the coffee shop. No wonder people were unfazed here.

What followed was a series of noises that left Taeyong disturbed. He'd rather not think about it too much.

When Yangyang comes back to them, the smile settles on his face like nothing happened. "Sorry about that. Kun usually handles these things but he's on a maternity leave because of Xiaojun."

" _Emergency leave!_ " Hendery corrects him from the back room. "Not _maternity_! Kun's not pregnant!"

"Right. That," Yangyang dismisses. "Three large Cappuccinos, wasn't it?"

This was going to be a long day.

. . .

"Face it. We're fucking lost."

Donghyuck groans in irritation. "I should've known following you was comparable to running into a mildly good-looking yet extremely unintelligent brick wall."

" _Yah!_ Where the fuck are you planning to lead us, Na Jaemin?"

"Had no idea dirty alleyways were coffee shops. Awesome job, you illiterate compass," Renjun stabs at the already open wound.

"At least I don't send my best friend's dick pics to his dead grandmother's phone number, you unloyal piece of bitch," Jaemin snaps back in retaliation.

"Such a shame she died too soon. She should've seen how much contribution you have failed to give to society."

"The only reason I got out of bed this morning was to drown myself in coffee and yet the only thing I'm getting in is a pool of other people's _bullshit_."

"Are your friends usually this brutal?" Mark asks as he watches the spectacle before him. 

"Nah," Donghyuck waves a hand in front of his face. And Mark is almost relieved. Keyword: Almost. Because Donghyuck finishes his statement. "They're holding back. It's usually worse."

Mark visibly winces. Maybe he got involved with the wrong crowd. 

"Alright everybody _shut up!"_ Donghyuck finally gets their attention, successful in preventing the argument Jisung and Chenle were about to have. "Let's split up. If you find the coffee shop then just send everyone a message on the group chat."

Agreeing reluctantly, Jaemin and Renjun took the left accompanied by Jeno in case they tear each other's throats out again; Jisung and Chenle took the right; and Mark and Donghyuck proceeded to move forward.

The sky was beginning to darken despite it being only a few minutes past 5 pm. The alleyway is half-lit, narrow and had the sour relics of a hundred take-away meals. Mark was overcome with a sick feeling of déjà vu.

He felt like he heard someone walk by behind them. After a quick glance over his shoulder and one more to make sure, Donghyuck notices his paranoia.

"Are you okay?" Concern laced Donghyuck's voice and it made Mark guilty of even worrying him.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. I just thought someone was..." Mark glances at Donghyuck only to have his eyes drawn to the person behind them "...following us."

Oh how he wishes it could've been a murderer instead. Noticing his expression of shock, Donghyuck turns around and stumbles back with a gasp.

_"Doyoung-sunbaenim."_

The three of them stare at one another, not knowing what to do. So as the clouds gather above them, Mark feels his soul stir, the air electrified as it anticipates the quenching storm.

"Minhyung-" Doyoung moves to grab him but Mark is quick to step back. Just the mention of his real name made him disgusted.

"Don't touch me!"

"Minhyung!" 

"No! Don't call me _that_! I won't go back!" Mark interlocks his arms with Donghyuck's. Sure, it made him look like a coward but at least he wouldn't return to being pathetic.

"So it was true," Doyoung says dejectedly as he scans Mark from the bottom of his shoes to the top of his head. It made Mark realize things once again, like how Doyoung still made it seem like he was below everyone else. "Why are you here?"

"None of your business," he spits out in Doyoung's direction before grabbing Donghyuck's hand to continue walking. "Hyuck, let's go."

The hesitation was clear in Donghyuck's face, not knowing what he was supposed to do in this situation. _"But-"_

Mark could just pretend this never happened. But a firm grip on his arm pulls him back forcefully. It was ice-cold, like a dead man's hand who had just risen from his grave.

_"Come with me."_

Mark struggles to free himself in Doyoung's hold, like a flailing fish that had been caught. "You really think I'll willingly return to that hellhole after I have finally broken free? I'm living just fine now, Doyoung. Why would I go back?"

Perhaps hearing his name from Mark's mouth triggered something within Doyoung. At that moment, Mark feels the grip on his arm tighten, determined not to let go.

Doyoung's face was raw with desperation. The corners of his eyes were red yet no tears spilled from both of them. To Mark, he only looked like a monster.

" _Eomma_ wants you to go home. She's been worried sick all this time. Let's go home okay?" Doyoung says softly, smiling.

Donghyuck stares at the man in shock but Mark remains unfazed at Doyoung's behavior or the meaning behind his words.

"Doyoung," he warns. "Stop this. You're confusing your delusions with reality again."

" _No_ ," Doyoung shakes his head from left to right rapidly. He seemed _broken_. Utterly irredeemable. "She must've done something to you. Poisoned your mind. That's why you don't care for us anymore." 

"DOYOUNG! _EOMMA WAS_ _MURDERED_!" Mark finally manages to break free when Doyoung hesitated for a brief moment. "Her corpse was sent back to us on your 15th birthday, remember?! Why can't you accept that she's already gone?!"

"YOU'RE LYING TO ME AGAIN!" Doyoung screams at the top of his lungs. "All of you... stop lying to me! We need to go home. Right now." This time, Doyoung gets close to grabbing Mark's hand but is shoved away roughly to the ground.

"She's _dead_ , hyung! She's already fucking _dead_!"

"No... _No_. That can't be right," Doyoung laughs brokenly. "She's at home. She's been waiting for you to go back for so long. She misses you. Let's go home, Minhyung?"

Mark looks at him in disbelief. "Doyoung. How were you able to survive all this time? Does _appa_ give you money?"

"No. He's usually out drinking all day with his friends. _Eomma_ tells me to just let him be." Doyoung giggles like a psychotic man. "She doesn't want him to be always at home, you see. She's having a hard time cleaning up the glass shards on the floor."

"Then... where have you been getting the money you've given to Mrs. Lee all this time?"

And then the rain came, signaled by just a drop of crystal-clear water appearing on Doyoung's fragile skin. He keeps smiling. "You don't need to worry about that, Minhyung. I am your reliable hyung after all, aren't I?"

"If you won't tell me, I'll have to ask _Taeyong-hyung_."

"Taeyong _-hyung_?" Doyoung repeats, the word foreign to his ears and like poison on his tongue. "Taeyong- _hyung_ this. Taeyong _-hyung_ that. Taeyong- _hyung_. Taeyong _-hyung_. You don't care about me anymore?"

His smile isn't real. Call it despair if you want, but something fake is more of his truth than the cruel reality.

"I have a new family now, Doyoung." 

"I don't understand. Don't you love us anymore?"

Mark hears the unspoken questions in Doyoung's eyes. _How is your thinking so different from my own? How is it that you see my suffering and choose to make it all the worse?_

But Mark suffered all the same. The only difference between them is that he has the chance to change his destiny. "Aren't you tired of living just for the sake of not dying? Everyday, we put our lives on the line to just make it to a tomorrow. You're tired too, aren't you?"

Hearing no response, no one makes a move. Thunder seamed to crack the air, as if the very heavens might split apart. 

"I _can't_ go back, _hyung_." That was the last thing Mark tells him, before disappearing from Doyoung's line of sight.

Thus he despaired. _Alone_. It was just another day.

Soon the waves of raindrops washed the soil, creating a melancholic song. Perhaps waiting for the rain to wash all of his misery away, Doyoung sat there, his gaze burning into the sky, staring at the beauty of the upcoming storm and the crying clouds. 

"I'll just have to drag you back home then," he mutters. "Wait for it. Once I can give her all the money she wants, she'll throw you away. And once that happens, you'll come crawling back to me."

Doyoung almost fails to notice, but the rain didn't soak him anymore. The dark sky he kept on staring at was replaced by a much darker view. A black umbrella was being held above his head.

" _You forgot this at school_ ," a familiar voice tells him. 

At that moment, a black cat passes by them in a hurry, trying to fit itself in a small hole underneath the cemented wall of a home. Perhaps to seek shelter from the rain or to steal a poor family's dinner for that night. Or perhaps... just to actually fit in for once.

Doyoung laughs genuinely in his post-haze of suffering. He didn't know why he did. "This happened quite differently before."

_"What?"_

"Nothing," Doyoung replies. "You're getting wet."

_"I'll be fine."_

"How long have you been listening?"

_"I arrived a little late but I got the gist of your conversation. I'm sorry."_

"Why are you apologizing?" Doyoung asks as a warm hand extends in front of him. For a moment he thinks that he could just... take it. And things would be fine. But it was never that easy.

_"Because I couldn't do anything to help you."_

"Help me," Doyoung quietly mocks. "Right. You always wanted to do that. And I never knew why."

_"Is that actually what you think the most interesting thing about me is?"_

"I kept asking you many times before but I you finally have an answer this time, don't you?"

He is met with a smile so genuine that he finds it hard to believe. Just like that day Doyoung finally looked at him. _"You're right. I do have an answer."_

"Tell me then, Taeyong. Why do you care so much?"

_"I think..."_ he pauses as he grips the umbrella with a determined heart.

Doyoung hears racing footsteps beside them, the splatter of puddles in the rain a signal that someone was drawing near. Jaehyun stops once he sees the two of them, face flushed and fully drenched and chasing air as if he couldn’t breathe.

But it was Taeyong who took breathing for granted until the day the air was stolen from his lungs. The words escape him.

_"I'm in love with you, Kim Doyoung."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok this is gonna be a lot so BREATHE
> 
> *aubergine - eggplant (why I put this in the end notes I'm not so sure myself)  
> *and YES. Even if Choi Jinyoung's dead he still manages to move the story to where I want it to go lmaooo  
> *That photograph is basically the main plot of this story so expect that the future chapters will revolve around it soon~  
> *The part where Jaehyun and Doyoung wrestle for dominance was a symbolism of how they view each other YAY SEXUAL TENSION  
> *Hello more characters because WAYV IS PART OF NCT YOU IGNORANT SWINE (if the coffee shop were to ever hire part timers they would be Sungchan and Shotaro😂😂😂)  
> *there were a lot of in-the-face hints to Yuta's character foundation in this chapter  
> *Notice the way Doyoung describes one of the three reasons in the change in his life 👀 Or you can just not because that would be revealed soon anyway  
> *in this chapter, you can read Mark slipping a lot of times whenever he addresses Doyoung as his "hyung". Clearly this relationship is not that hopeless on the pathway to recovery😂  
> *You're all probably screaming about this already (Are you?) BUT LEMME SCREAM WITH YOU BECAUSE The fucking confession finally happened!!! (But not from the Main Character's love interest because Jung Jaehyun is one stubborn piece of bitch so he's going to suffer by Doyoung slowly being taken away from him hahahahahahaha (╯°▽°)╯ ┻━┻)  
> Considering that I estimate this story to have about 20 chapters I thought it was about time for some ROMANTIC PROGRESS😂  
> *ALSO THE FUCKING BLACK UMBRELLA AND THE BLACK CAT  
> *Don't worry we'll discuss Johnny in the next chapter ɷ◡ɷ This chapter was getting too long so- I FELT IT WAS TOO MUCH
> 
> This fic only revives whenever NCT has a comeback v(￣∇￣) But I shall do my best because I genuinely want to finish this story LMAO This is probably my favorite chapter to write because it had the most... emotion? 
> 
> I enjoyed your thoughts last time so go wild this time too~
> 
> Additional notes:  
> One of you suggested I make a curious cat account so if you have any questions then kindly scream at me here:  
> [ curious cat ](https://curiouscat.qa/headlesshyuck)  
> [ twitter ](https://twitter.com/headlesshyuck?s=09)


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